







































































































































COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 






























































































































































































'She 

BUSINESS WOMAN 


Her Personality 
and Health 


OTHER BOOKS 


by Dr. William S. Sadler 
and Dr. Lena K. Sadler 


The Science of Living 

The Physiology of Faith and Fear 

Worry and Nervousness 

The Quest for Happiness 

The Mind at Mischief 

The Essentials of Healthful Living 

Americanitis: Blood Pressure and Nerves 

The Mother and Her Child 

How to Feed the Baby 

The Art of Dieting 

The Cause and Cure of Colds 

Constipation and How to Cure Yourself 

The Plagues of Modern Living 

Unto the Third and Fourth Generations 

The Road to Attainment 

The Psychology of Mental Healing 

The Riddle of Spiritualism 






13 he 

BUSINESS WOMAN 


Her Personality and Health 



WILLIAM S. SADLER, M.D., F.A.C.S. 

« i 


FORMERLY PROFESSOR AT THE POST-GRADUATE MEDICAL SCHOOL OF CHICAGO; SENIOR 
ATTENDING SURGEON TO COLUMBUS HOSPITAL; DIRECTOR OF THE CHICAGO 
INSTITUTE OF RESEARCH AND DIAGNOSIS; FELLOW OF THE AMERICAN 
COLLEGE OF SURGEONS; FELLOW OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL 

association; member of the Chicago medical 

SOCIETY, THE ILLINOIS STATE MEDICAL 
SOCIETY, THE AMERICAN PUBLIC 
HEALTH ASSOCIATION, 

ETC. 


1 


HTA' 





> * 

I t 0 

> . t 


Third Edition 



THOMAS S. ROCKWELL COMPANY 

CHICAGO 

1930 


v c b'i 

\ 330 


Copyright 

THOMAS S. ROCKWELL COMPANY 
1930 


Printed in the United States of America 

©CIA 24400 


PREFACE 


F OR many years I have been writing for, and lectur¬ 
ing to, business executives and salesmen on the es¬ 
sentials of a successful business career, but of late many 
of my close friends, including my wife and professional 
associate, Dr. Lena K. Sadler, have been urging me to 
present in book form, as I see them, the essential ele¬ 
ments which enter into the success and happiness of 
business women, not alone of the younger women who 
are beginning their activities in the arena of commerce 
but, as well, of those who have climbed to the top and 
demonstrated their right to the title of business execu¬ 
tives. 

In the preparation of this manuscript I have sought 
to utilize the experience that has come to me in my 
profession, and have been further encouraged and 
helped by the counsels of numerous Deans of Women 
and heads of Welfare Departments in several of Chi¬ 
cago ’s leading business concerns. I am therefore 
presenting this effort, the result of many years of ob¬ 
servation and study, with the hope that it will be of 
encouragement and benefit, both psychological and 
physiological, to those who may chance to read it. 

I send this book to the press with the hope that it 
may be the means of increasing the efficiency, multi¬ 
plying the happiness, and preserving the health of many 
a business woman. 

WILLIAM S. SADLER 

533 Diversey Parkway, Chicago, 


V 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 9 

PART I. PERSONALITY—THE BUSINESS ENGINE , 5 

I. Cleverness — Ingenuity 15 

II. Conviction — Intelligent Enthusiasm 19 

III. Self-Confidence— Faith Versus Fear 21 

IV. Self-Control— Temperance and Moderation 25 

V. Systematic Habits — Organization 29 

VI. Womanliness — Refinement 32 

VII. Experience— Life’s Savings Bank 38 

PART II. THE PILLARS OF HEALTH—BUSINESS ENERGY 44 

I. Fresh Air and Sunlight 45 

II. Foods and Digestion 49 

III. Circulation and the Clothing 54 

IV. Water Drinking and Bathing 57 

V. Elimination of Poisons 59 

VI. Exercise 63 

VII. Rest and Sleep 65 

PART III. THE BAROMETERS OF PEP—BUSINESS INDICATORS 6 9 

I. Anemia — Iron in the Blood 69 

II. Acidemia — Acid in the Urine 72 

III. Blood Pressure— The Gauge of Power 77 

IV. Sk?in Elasticity— Thyroid Activity 81 

V. Temper Explosions and the Sense of Humor 86 

VI. Vital Capacity — Lung Capacity 89 

VII. Resistance to Disease 91 

PART IV. SAFETY VALVES FOR PEP—EMOTIONAL ELIMINATION 9 $ 
I. Femininity — Love of Your Sex 98 

II. Loyalty — Love of Your Firm 99 

III. Contentment— Love of IVork 100 

IV. Recreation— Love of Play 101 

V. Sociability — Love of Folks 104 

VI. Womanhood — Love of Family 106 

VII. Religion — The Love of God 107 

VIII. False Safety Valves no 

APPENDIX 115 

Daily Exercises— Illustrated 115 


7 




» 












♦ 







INTRODUCTION 

T HE business woman is here—she has arrived, and 
I have little doubt in my mind that she has come 
to stay. No matter how the business man may look 
upon her as a compatriot, associate, or helper, the 
business woman is a permanent factor in our commer¬ 
cial life and must be reckoned with as such. Further¬ 
more, she certainly has demonstrated that, with equal 
training*, she is capable of thinking just as clearly and 
exercising just as keen judgment, of reaching just as 
reliable decisions, as the “men folks.” 

A commercial career is an experience more or less 
new to womankind, so that there are many problems 
connected with her entrance into this field of activity. 
It is my purpose, frankly and plainly, to discuss these 
questions of personal efficiency, physical health, and 
all around success, from the particular standpoint of 
my professional experience with business women, in¬ 
cluding the whole range of employed women, from the 
working girl to the seasoned executive. I propose to 
present to the business woman the physician’s view¬ 
point—to show her how she can utilize, to the best pos¬ 
sible advantage, the personality with which Nature has 
endowed her; how she can become most efficient; how 
she can achieve the greatest measure of happiness; and 
since health is indispensable to both happiness and 
efficiency, I propose to tell her of many ways in which 
she can conserve her health and improve her physical 
condition if she is, at any point, below par. 


9 


10 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


WHAT IS PEP? 

This book might really be called a discussion of 
personality and pep, for first I am going to tell you 
about the factors that go to make up the personality 
of the successful business woman, then I am going to 
discuss with you the energy, or pep, that must activate 
that personality in order that victories may be won on 
the battlefield of commercial contention. 

But what is pep? In answering this, I promise you 
that I am not going to write a medical treatise, but I 
am going to tell you some things in common everyday 
language. I propose to bring you the latest develop¬ 
ments of medical science and present them in plain 
English, that you may become altogether familiar with 
the various elements that go to make up what we mean 
in that slang, but expressive word, pep. For this slang 
term has come to stand for both health and efficiency. 

Pep means that fulsome feeling of well-being, that 
sensation of being surcharged with vitality. When you 
are full of pep, you are like a race horse being held in 
leash, ready for the trial of strength, eager for any 
test of endurance. You know you can win if you only 
have a fair chance. Now, on the other hand, when you 
have lost your pep, there is only one term in the world 
that describes just how miserable you feel, and that is 
the term “rotten.’’ Courage, hope, and ambition are 
at low ebb. Your morale is shot to pieces; in short, 
you feel more or less 4 ‘all in.” 

When your pep is at high tide, you are in possession 
of all the elements of physical courage, mental alert¬ 
ness, and moral confidence that are so essential to ag¬ 
gressive action in the business world, which are so in¬ 
dispensable to the achievement of commercial conquest 
—to the winning of business battles. 

To Have Pep is to Have Health—they are synony¬ 
mous. To have pep means that you can wake up in the 
morning and face the day’s effort with courage and 


INTRODUCTION 


11 


confidence, tackle its problems with assurance and 
determination, feeling in every way fit for the struggle 
and assured of success. 

On the other hand, what is more pathetic than the 
spectacle of a modern business woman, in every way 
ambitious and desirous of achieving success in her 
chosen calling, who is partly or completely broken 
down physically, wrecked nervously; weeping those 
bitter tears of disappointment and regret as she con¬ 
templates the probability of failure—of defeat—all be¬ 
cause she just hasn’t the physical strength to go 
through with her job ? She just cannot stand up under 
the strain. In a word, she has lost her pep, and with 
it quickly go courage, confidence and ambition. 

GET A SLOGAN 

I find it very helpful in dealing with my patients, 
particularly business men and women, to encourage 
them to adopt a working slogan . I have helped many 
a neurasthenic man to turn the tide of defeat as it 
rolled against him and threatened his success, by teach¬ 
ing him to be systematic, to adopt some such slogan as 
“Do It Now,” and to quit his habit of everlastingly 
putting things off. I have discovered that some women, 
particularly nervous women, have made it a rule of 
their lives never to do anything today that can be put 
off until tomorrow; but that means certain defeat, 
particularly in the commercial world. 

Suppose you business women adopt a slogan some¬ 
thing like this, “First Think It Over, Then Act.” 
Women, you know, are sometimes accused, at least by 
us men, of acting too much on intuition, of being con¬ 
trolled too much by sentiment. I presume we men need 
to cultivate sentiment, and you need to cultivate a more 
deliberate judgment—cool, calm reasoning ability. 
But after you have thought a thing over and reached 
your decision, act, and act with determination. Put 
your whole personality into your decisions when you 
have once reached them by thought and deliberation. 


12 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


I know a great many women who have helped them¬ 
selves immensely by adopting some such slogan as 
‘‘ Play the Game,” while others have chosen ‘‘Fight, 
Don’t Faint.” It is worth something to have near by, 
handy in the mind, a war cry, a battle call, and many 
of you will find it well to take the one we men like so 
much, and that is, “Do It Now.” 

Hundreds of business women are making failures of 
their careers because of the excess baggage, the load of 
unfinished business which they are, all the time, carry¬ 
ing around in their minds. Their heads are crammed 
so full of trifles they have little time to devote to the 
essentials of business. They are busy all the time run¬ 
ning around just like a chicken with its head off. They 
are devoid of system and organization. Speaking of 
running around like a chicken with its head off makes 
me think of a feeble-minded little chap who lived near 
me when I was a little shaver. One Sunday morning, 
I remember so well, we were sitting on the fence watch¬ 
ing his father killing the chicken for the Sunday din¬ 
ner. You all know how a chicken will flop around for 
a while after its head is cut off. Well, this little fellow 
watched the dying fowl flopping around for a moment, 
when, looking up at me and grinning, he said, “It’s 
dead, but it doesn’t know it.” There are a lot of peo¬ 
ple, in many walks of life, who are just about dead 
from the neck up, but they don’t know it. A lot more, 
in the process of dying, are going around loaded up 
with foolish plans, and weighted down with unfinished 
business, so that to all practical intents and purposes 
they are dead ones in commercial life. Like the 
chicken, they may not know it, but they are all through 
except for the funeral rites. 

So, to you business women, let me say this: every 
day, divide your work into the essentials and the non- 
essentials. See that you do the essentials, and then 
don’t worry for one minute if all the nonessentials are 
left undone. This is an especially important thing for 
women to learn, because it has been my observation 


INTRODUCTION 


13 


that women have a tendency to collect about them a 
lot of little things that are in no way essential to their 
real success in business; for you know, while you say 
we men are egotistic, we come back at you and say you 
are vain and fussy. 

Now, strip yourselves for action, ladies, if you are 
going into business to get results. Focus your attention 
on the essentials, and learn how to bury a wagonload of 
nonessentials with each dying day as the setting sun 
goes down behind the clouds in the west. 

If you should go into my office, you will find very 
little unfinished business in my desk. I answer letters 
when I get them; I attend to duties when the call 
comes. I do not put things off that are physically pos¬ 
sible to attend to now. I have a middle drawer in my 
desk for unfinished business, and it is empty most of 
the time. I figure that by system, organization, and by 
my long time slogan of “Do It Now,” I am able to 
keep myself healthy, happy, free from nervous strain, 
and to accomplish at least fifty per cent more every 
day and every week I live than I could otherwise. 

When you have something to do, make the memo¬ 
randum, put in the telephone call, attend to the errand, 
write the letter—“Do It Now:” get it off your system, 
and be ready to take on the next thing that is waiting 
for your attention. 

And now, after this word of introduction, and this 
little time spent getting acquainted, perhaps I should 
tell you how I propose to discuss this great question 
of Personality and Health. I will give you a brief out¬ 
line of the four sections (each having seven subdivi¬ 
sions) into which this book will be divided. They are: 

1. Personality. A discussion of the business engine; 
but more especially the psychologic, or mental factors 
making for business success. 

2. The Pillars of Health. Business energy; pep. 
The physical factors making for success. 

3. The Barometers of Pep. The business indicators. 
How to read signals of distress, from a health stand- 


14 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


point, or the medical factors making for commercial 
success. 

4. The Safety Valves of Pep. The problems of emo¬ 
tional elimination; the safeguards of health in com¬ 
mercial life. The moral factors making for business 
success. 


PART I 


PERSONALITY— THE BUSINESS 
ENGINE 

T HE first thing I am going to discuss is the psychol¬ 
ogy of success: those elements of personality which 
are so indispensable to advancement in the business 
world. What I call personality has been variously 
called by others personal magnetism, ability, judgment, 
character and the like. They all mean the same thing. 
Personal magnetism simply means personality, that’s 
all—just forget about the magnetism. 

There are seven traits of personality that I propose 
to tell you about. Six of them you can cultivate. It is 
only the first one that is purely, or largely, hereditary. 
This is the only one that you can secure only from your 
ancestors, although you can do much to improve even 
that trait. 

I CLEVERNESS—INGENUITY 

Outside of those one-horse merchants who manage 
small grocery stores and little shops, the most success¬ 
ful business men and women are more or less clever ; 
and cleverness is largely hereditary. 

Cleverness is sometimes very dangerous, in that 
some people inherit so much of it that they think they 
can get along in the world without hard work. Per¬ 
haps some of you can remember hearing the neighbors 
remark about you, when you were a sweet little thing, 
reciting some favorite poem like “Mary Had a Little 
Lamb,’' I say, perhaps you can remember hearing the 
neighbors say: “Isn’t she clever? Isn’t she smart?” 
And perhaps you were foolish enough to believe it. 
Maybe you haven’t gotten over the delusion yet. If 
you are clever, it is better not to know too much 
about it, at least while you are young. It is better that 


15 


16 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


we get the notion in our heads that hard work and 
continuous plugging are essential to success. 

Perhaps we can make better progress in our study 
of cleverness if we undertake to analyze this gift of the 
gods. As I understand it, cleverness consists of the 
following elements: 

1. Intuition—Spontaneous Association of Ideas. 

The psychologists tell us that what we call intuition is 
simply spontaneous—almost instantaneous—association 
of ideas down in the deep centers of the mind. Women 
certainly have more of this thing we call intuition than 
men, and this is due, so other scientists tell us, to the 
fact that the posterior lobe of their pituitary gland is 
larger than the anterior lobe. They tell us that delib¬ 
erate reasoning power comes from a large anterior lobe, 
and that intuition and sentiment originate in the poster¬ 
ior lobe. Men are, therefore, supposed to have more of 
that cold calculating ability than women. 

You should understand that all our thinking process, 
that is, sensations that originate in the body as they 
move upward through the levels of thinking in the mind, 
are supposed to pass through a brain center known as 
‘‘association of ideas.” It is believed that women think 
more quickly than men, under given conditions—they 
more quickly arrive at intuitive decisions. Now this is 
a good thing in many ways, and it gives you a certain 
advantage over men in the business world, but look out, 
ladies! If you are superficial thinkers, if you have not 
developed good judgment and sober reasoning powers, 
your intuition is liable to lead you astray. Intuition is 
not always a safe guide in business. 

If you have taught your reasoning powers to delib¬ 
erate properly, if you have disciplined your mind and 
given your brain a little training in sober thinking, then 
this ability to think and make up your mind quickly 
becomes a valuable asset in business. It is a magnificent 
cog in the mental machine when it comes to commercial 
activities. But, on the other hand, if your mind still 
works after the thoughtless manner of a high school girl, 


PERSONALITY 


17 


then intuition becomes not an asset, but, rather, a dan¬ 
gerous liability. 

2. Quick Thinking and Correct Thinking. Intui¬ 
tion is that remarkable gift which enables a business 
woman to face a problem with four or five different 
intricate angles and, with a minimum of thought, to 
make up her mind—to decide—and then successfully to 
carry through the plan which she has settled upon. 
That’s intuition; and all men and women who have 
succeeded big in the business world, whose success was 
not a mere fluke or accident, have been blessed with 
more or less of this unique and sometimes uncanny 
talent. 

There is no place in business for those folks who re¬ 
quire half a day to make up their minds; who are all day 
reaching a decision on some pressing matter. You must 
be able to think, think rapidly and think reliably, if you 
are going to succeed in business. It is true, some women 
can think rapidly, but they do not think reliably. What 
is required in the business woman is not only that she 
think quickly, but that she also think correctly. That 
is the secret of success. 

3. Willingness to Learn. But never feel that you 
are so clever that you are above instruction; that you 
know too much to take advice; that you are altogether 
too great a person to seek counsel. Such a state of mind 
is going to keep you in a small place. In a multitude 
of counselors, the wise man said there was safety; and 
never, never, I beg of you as business women, permit 
your feminine pride or the self-confidence of intuition 
to lead you to throw away the advice and counsel of 
seasoned business men, men of real and practical expe¬ 
rience, just because they are “mere men.” Please 
listen to our counsel and judge it on its merits, and do 
not reject it because it is masculine in origin. Two 
heads may be better than one, even if one is a man’s 
head. 

I have known a great many women to fail because 
of this peculiar feminine egotism which their male 

2—Sept. 24 


18 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


associates detected, and it turned all their business col¬ 
leagues into unconscious enemies, whereas they might 
easily have made all of them friends and helpers, if they 
had gone about the job with less sex consciousness—less 
of that feminine vanity which led to this fatal sort of 
over-confidence and over-dependence on this supposed 
inherent cleverness, or intuition, which is more or less 
characteristic of the 1 ‘female of the species.’’ 

4. Glands of Personality—The Ductless Glands. 
¥e have seen that woman probably possesses a little 
more intuition, as compared with men, because of the 
fact that she has a larger posterior pituitary gland. Now 
you should understand that these pituitary glands are a 
part of what we call the ductless gland system of the 
human body. You should further understand that our 
personality is determined, not merely by the quantity 
and quality of gray matter which we inherit from our 
ancestors, but is also determined by this group of six or 
eight little so-called glands which work together in such 
a marvelous and mysterious manner to influence both 
temperament and conduct. 

These little ductless glands constitute a sort of 
“board of chemical directors” which have very much 
to do with determining the end results of all our 
efforts to carve out a career. Many a man or woman 
has met with success or defeat just because he or she 
had a fortunate or unfortunate ‘ 1 board of chemi¬ 
cal directors.” This board of chemical directors is 
usually, but not always, dominated by one particular 
gland. It becomes, as it were, a sort of “chairman of 
the board.” 

"We are accustomed to thinking of the will as being 
the sovereign of the mind, the real ruler of the intellect; 
but this is hardly true. At least, our wills are not the 
unconditional monarchs we have painted them in times 
past. The human will must now be looked upon as a 
sovereign that rules in a limited monarchy, a monarch 
strictly limited by the gray matter which our ancestors 
gave us, and rigidly controlled by a chemical constitu- 


PERSONALITY 


19 


tion and bylaws such as we find in the ductless gland 
system. 

5. A Smooth Personality—The Well Balanced In¬ 
dividual. We often speak of people as having a smooth 
personality. We sometimes speak of an individual as “a 
pretty smooth proposition.” Now, again, that is largely 
ductless glands, it is not merely experience and training. 
A smooth personality—an individual who can get into 
all sorts of trying positions and find a way out—means 
managerial capacity, business ability. Of course, this 
whole business game presupposes that you must have 
inherited from your ancestors a reasonable supply of 
gray matter; for the brain, after all, is the coordinating 
central station, the basis of success, and the secret of 
achievement in the business world. A good ductless 
gland system is of no avail if you are short gray matter. 

II. CONVICTION—INTELLIGENT 
ENTHUSIASM 

Remember, you must be sold on a thing yourself be¬ 
fore you can succeed in selling it to others. The busi¬ 
ness woman must have a deep-seated conviction that the 
thing she is doing ought to be done. You must believe 
in a thing before you can make other people believe that 
what you offer is better than the product of your rivals. 

If you should attend a social gathering when you 
had a bona fide case of smallpox, you would be able 
to give it to everyone present (unless they had been 
vaccinated or had already had the disease) ; and it is 
the same way with a business proposition. If you are a 
real live wire, if your soul is on fire with the proposition 
you have to put over, then other people are going to catch 
the spirit from you; they are going to fall in line, buy or 
do anything else you ask them to, because that is the rea¬ 
son you are so enthusiastic—you are trying to do some¬ 
thing that is for the good of the world, for the good of 
your prospects. You have an enthusiasm that is based on 
conviction, and conviction is always a matter of sincerity. 


20 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


Now, this sort of conviction, this sort of intelligent 
enthusiasm, helps to convert you from the proverbial 
wall flower into a thinking, acting, fighting business 
woman—a real go-getter. This is the way you overcome 
much of the backwardness and indecision that charac¬ 
terizes so many young business women; and all this can 
be done without losing any of that winsomeness and 
attractiveness which we commonly call womanliness. 

And, of course, all this enthusiasm in no way implies 
that you are going to become rude or in any way make a 
nuisance of yourselves as you mingle with your fellow 
men. 

1. Deep-Seated Devotion. The successful business 
woman in these days of keen competition should be 
animated by the spirit of a crusader. She should be 
dominated by the urge of a conqueror, and all the while 
activated by the curiosity of an explorer. Of course, if 
you are merely a clerk or an order taker, you don’t have 
to have any of these heroic endowments. You just go 
along in a humdrum way, and do your work day by day 
and draw your salary week by week. But I am talking, 
I hope, to real business women, to those who want to 
achieve something and be somebody in the business 
world. 

2. Thorough-Going Application. You must make 
thorough-going application of yourself to the proposition 
you have in hand. Maybe you will think best to culti¬ 
vate some little peculiarity of dress or manner. I don’t 
mean by that that you are going to be odd; but, to illus¬ 
trate—I read the other day about a newspaper man who 
says he knows several thousand people and they probably 
all know him, because every time he meets anyone he 
asks, “Have you got a match?” He has come to be 
known by this. His friends know what he is going to 
say the moment he opens his mouth, for he has either 
unconsciously or purposely cultivated this trait. 

I have a friend, who always dresses in white clothes, 
winter and summer. He may have many reasons for 
this, but it has occurred to many of us that this is a 


PERSONALITY 


21 


trick he has of attracting attention to himself. Many 
of us unconsciously cultivate these personalities and 
other tricks of mannerism which serve to distinguish us 
from the rest of the workaday world. 

3. The Danger of Overwork. But with all your 
enthusiasm for your job, don’t overdo it. Look out for 
over-work. You don’t want either to wear out or rust 
out, you want to keep in successful action. Don’t make 
a religion out of your work and kill yourself off in your 
youth. That is carrying business too far. But short of 
wearing yourself out, get on the job and stick to it. 

4. Positive Attitude. This sort of commercial 
conviction I am talking about, this intelligent enthu¬ 
siasm, leads to positiveness. It leads you to meet your 
customer’s quibbling with decision; it does away with all 
hesitancy in your method of approach. The reactions 
of your subject are met with a positive attitude on your 
part. You match every negative suggestion he puts 
forward with a positive reply. To his pessimism you 
breathe a sane optimism. You are a real evangelist of 
commerce, and you have gone out to convert men from 
the error of their business ways to the better and more 
useful methods and measures which you have to offer; 
to win them from their viewpoints of indecision and un¬ 
certainty to your viewpoint of decision, certainty and 
success. 


III. SELF-CONFIDENCE—FAITH 
VERSUS FEAR 

Fear is the business woman’s assassin. It sneaks up 
behind her in the dark, sticks a knife into her, and 
drains out the life blood. The thing that is at the bot¬ 
tom of the failure of most business men and women 
is fear—just that little blue devil, fear; and remember, 
if you forget everything else I tell you, that the only 
known cure for fear—is faith. 

There is a legitimate, sane, self-confidence which 
every healthy and enthusiastic business woman should 


22 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


have—in herself and in the thing which she has set out 
to do. You must believe in your ability to put over 
the thing you have undertaken. You must believe in 
your goods, on the one hand, and in your ability to de¬ 
liver them, on the other. I want you to have courage — 
not conceit. 

1. You Must Believe in Your Proposition. You 

must believe the thing you are selling, or the proposition 
you are putting over, is the best of its kind in the world; 
or at least just as good as any other. You must believe 
that the service you are rendering is equal, if not 
superior, to that offered by any of your competitors. 
You must have faith in your firm—your business 
connection. 

There must be that loyalty and confidence in your 
business associates that will enable you favorably to im¬ 
press your customers—the people you are dealing with. 
If you don’t think you are being treated right, you 
better straighten out that state of mind, or resign and 
go elsewhere. Represent the best, aim for the highest, 
don’t be connected with a thing you can’t stand up for, 
don’t belong to a business aggregation that you can’t 
have the utmost faith in. 

Of course, we are all human, nothing is absolutely 
perfect in this old world, but in object, aim and design, 
we can be of such high standing and represent such pur¬ 
poses and motives of integrity, that we can inspire faith 
in all our business connections and prospects. 

2. You Must Believe in Your Customer. Don’t 
look upon your customer merely as a fish you are angling 
for. You are not trying to catch him or sting him. You 
must know that he really needs the thing you have to 
offer, and you must be sympathetic and fair in all your 
dealings with him. Have faith in him and thus dispel 
his fear of you. One of the great tasks of salesmanship 
is to overcome fear on the part of the customer—fear 
that you are going to “do him up” in some way. Put 
him at ease, and let him see that you believe in him and 
thus indirectly inspire him to believe in you. 


PERSONALITY 


23 


3. You Must Believe in Yourself. If you are go¬ 
ing to succeed in the business world you must believe in 
yourself. I don’t refer to egotistic, big-headedness, the 
sort of thing that makes you merely a puff-ball. You 
know there is a lot of difference between pep and puff; 
I know a lot of people who are artists on puff, they go 
on the theory that other people will think they have a 
lot in their heads, just because they feel them swelling. 

There is a legitimate self-confidence, which the busi¬ 
ness woman should have in her ability to do things, and 
which will give her poise, dignity and success; and 
which will cause other people to look upon her with 
respect and confidence. I refer to that sort of thing 
which comes from the conscious knowledge that you 
know your business, that you know how to do the thing 
you are undertaking and which inspires your prospects 
to want to do business with you, and to trust the firm 
that employs such competent, self-possessed representa¬ 
tives. 

What I want you to have is legitimate faith, in order 
to overcome the inherent tendency to fear; and remem¬ 
ber that fear is heartless, cold blooded, and cruel, that 
when it once lays its fiendish hand upon an otherwise 
successful business woman it never loosens its grip 
until she is brought down in ruin; unless perchance, in 
the midst of such a life and death struggle, some good 
evangel comes along to preach the gospel of faith and 
proclaim deliverance from fear in the name of hope and 
determination. 

4. The Right Kind of Egotism. You know it is 
said of men that they are naturally egotistic, and that 
you women are naturally vain. I think that is about 
true, and I wouldn’t want it to be otherwise. We don’t 
want you women to be the commonplace sort of things 
we men are. We want you to be reasonably vain and 
trifling, fussy about your clothes and complexion. And 
I don’t think you would want us men to be altogether 
devoid of egotism. You like to see us strut around a little, 
and play at the game of running the world, being the 


24 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


head of the family, etc. I don’t think it is distasteful 
if we don’t over-do it. 

But right here let me encourage women to develop a 
reasonable amount of egotism—self-confidence. Don’t 
be too easily discouraged and downcast just because you 
haven’t the right tools, the best opportunity, or the 
right job. Make yourself happy while you are working 
up to prospects. Make the best of what you have. 

I wonder if you have ever heard the story of the 
happy-go-lucky fellow who was going down a narrow 
trail on a mountain side. This path was cut out of the 
side of steep rock, and it was about two thousand feet 
straight down into the canyon below. Just as this chap 
came around a bend in the trail he saw a big grizzly 
bear coming up the trail just a few feet below. In a 
moment he would be face to face with him. Our friend 
stopped, saw there was no way of escape, it was up hill 
back, the bear was upon him. He had no weapons of 
defense except a big knife; and this fellow, for once in 
his life, began to feel religious. He dropped down on his 
knees and began to pray, and this is what he is reported 
to have said: “God, if there is a God, you know I’ve 
never bothered you very much with my troubles, but now 
you can see for yourself that I’m strictly up against it. 
Now, if it’s consistent, seeing I’ve not been a praying, 
God-fearing man, I hope you’ll be with me and help me 
out. But if, for any reason, you can’t be on my side, 
don’t be on the bear’s side, just lie low and watch the 
greatest scrap you ever saw.” 

I want you to learn to go at your problems confident 
of success, believing that the God of business is on your 
side and that you are sure to win, believing that your 
friends are going to help you out on the side lines. But 
all the while tackle your problems with the spirit of the 
mountain pilgrim. Say to your friends and competitors: 
“If you can’t help me don’t hinder me. Lie low and 
see a great scrap.” 


PERSONALITY 


25 


IV. SELF-CONTROL—TEMPERANCE 
AND MODERATION 

By self-control, we do not mean to convey the idea 
of self-suppression, but rather that of moderation— 
temperance. The apostle Paul said, “Let your moder¬ 
ation he known unto all men.” Every woman engaged 
in the business struggle of the twentieth century should 
know how to regulate and control her hours of business 
and recreation, as well as the matter of temper and tem¬ 
perament. 

1. Discretion. We have long been taught that 
“discretion is the better part of valor.” Good judg¬ 
ment is the one thing indispensable to success in business 
life. Discretion often means that you must carefully 
guard a secret—know how to keep things to yourself. 
You know, it is commonly believed that women are gifted 
in gossiping, but the woman who is going to succeed and 
get along with the men of the business world—will most 
certainly be one who knows how to keep her own counsel. 
Oratory is a wmnderful gift—you need all you have 
inherited; but it is a wonderful thing, sometimes, to 
know when to keep still, to gain a reputation, as a busi¬ 
ness woman, of being trustworthy with anybody’s secret 
at all times. 

You make up your mind that the folks who know 
you are going to have to change their tune about a wom¬ 
an telling everything she knows. Don’t give them 
ground for any further opinion of women such as that 
shown in the story they tell of the little girl who had 
been so naughty that her mother sent her up stairs to 
say her prayers and ask God for forgiveness. Pretty 
soon she came tripping down the stairs with her face 
wreathed in smiles, and otherwise so gay, that the 
mother seriously questioned the sincerity of her re¬ 
pentance. So she asked of the little one: “Did you tell 
God how naughty you were and get it all fixed up with 
Him?” Whereupon the levitous juvenile replied, “Oh, 
yes, I got it fixed up all right. I didn’t tell God, He 


26 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


was busy. I told Mrs. God about it, and I s’pose it's 
all over Heaven by this time.” 

Now, ladies, do your duty to correct the impression 
that lies behind the thought of this story. Show the 
world just how well you can keep a secret. Of course, 
I don’t believe this popular notion about women. I 
have lived with a professional woman, and I know that 
she can keep a secret, and I know a great many women 
among my patients who keep secrets well, and I know 
business women who are thoroughly trustworthy. I am 
merely ventilating a popular notion of women in general 
in discussing with you, and in this light vein, this par¬ 
ticular view of womankind. And I know you agree with 
me that the business woman must be of a type other 
than the back-yard, back-fence, gossiping sort of indi¬ 
vidual. The business woman of today must get a big 
view of things and be a woman who can trust and be 
trusted. 

2. Modesty. After all, modesty is simply part of 
good self-control. Thorough-going self-restraint should 
be the aim of the business woman. Make every effort to 
see that you are not conspicuous. You can make your¬ 
self conspicuous and attract undue attention by either 
over-dressing or under-dressing. There is need of good 
taste and excellent judgment, and withal modesty, in the 
case of the business woman, as she plans for her dress, 
her manner, and her conduct. You may naturally be 
light-hearted, you may even be one of those effervescing, 
bubbling over types of femininity. Don’t try to make 
yourself over and be like somebody else. Merely put the 
thing under control, restrain it. When you go out into 
the business world to succeed, make up your mind you 
are going to be a woman from start to finish, that you 
are going to succeed as a woman, that you are go¬ 
ing to fight out your commercial battles along womanly 
lines. 

You don’t have to make yourself over in order to 
become a model of self-restraint. You can work as you 
are. In fact, it would be a good thing for you, as a 


PERSONALITY 


27 


business woman, to cultivate the art of living with your¬ 
self as you are and the world as it is* 

You are going to learn to exercise such control over 
yourself as will make you tolerant of others and prevent 
your becoming overbearing, on the one hand, or un¬ 
charitable, on the other, as you view the faults of your 
fellow workers. You know there are a lot of good peo¬ 
ple in the world we can fall out with and dislike just 
because we, ourselves, are intolerant. They are just as 
good as you are, and you would like them if you only 
changed your viewpoint. 

I wonder how the business woman is going to travel 
that delicate and modest middle of the road course 
which avoids coarseness and mannishness, on the one 
hand, and shuns undue familiarity and those little 
flirtatious mannerisms, on the other. The business 
woman must go out into the arena of commerce and in¬ 
dustry quite free from sex consciousness, and perform 
in a normal and natural manner, with that dignity and 
self-confidence which should characterize a woman who 
enjoys good physical health, and who possesses good 
poise and self-confidence. 

3. The Golden Rule. In the effort of the business 
woman to exercise self-control, attain tolerance, it is a 
good thing to remember the Golden Rule. Learn to look 
at things from the other fellow’s viewpoint. When you 
are about to do something that will hurt a fellow-being, 
stop and consider how such a course would wound your 
feelings and don’t do it; restrain yourself. 

You must learn how to practice that beautiful art of 
trimming and adjusting, of modifying your program 
and shifting your policy to accomplish your purpose, 
while at the same time giving as little offense as possible 
to your fellow men. In your effort to gain your point 
and put over your proposition, be delicate and artistic, 
rather than rough and inconsiderate. It particularly 
behooves the woman of business to gain success by means 
of artistic planning and sagacious methods, so that with¬ 
al, when she has reached the goal, none can say but that 


28 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


throughout the whole transaction she has been, in word 
and in deed, a gentlewoman. 

4. The Milk of Human Kindness. Self-control 
means, always, a charitable outlook on life—on the 
human race as a whole. Some folks have plenty of the 
milk of human kindness stored up within them, but it 
oozes tardily. They seem to suffer from a lack of ability 
to give it expression. If you know them well enough 
you find they are very kind hearted, but a superficial 
acquaintance suggests that they possess little or none of 
this thing which we call the milk of human kindness. 

You never know when, by some word or act, you are 
making a profound, perhaps even a life-long, impression 
upon a business associate, or some other weary and care¬ 
worn pilgrim. 

I remember well riding on the train with an Amer¬ 
ican man of affairs over in Germany many years ago. I 
had a talk with him about things in general, but nothing 
special that I can recall; but later on, following his 
death, I received a cablegram from his sister giving a 
report of his dying message to me, which was, in part: 
“I am risking my eternal future on what you told me on 
the train, on the way to Prague.” Now, that’s rather a 
serious business, isn’t it? To talk with a fellow on the 
train, and then when he gets ready to pass over, have 
him notify you that he is risking everything on your 
viewpoint—when you are quite unconscious of having 
discussed anything so serious with him. 

Let us simply form the habit of being kind. Don’t 
let the sordid grind of commerce, or the senseless rush 
and hurry of business, so distort your viewpoint of life, 
or so pervert your attitude toward human kind, that 
you become a callous, unthinking creature of commerce, 
quite incapable of manifesting the more tender senti¬ 
ments and the maternal attributes which are supposed 
to be so characteristic of womankind. 

It will come back to you. I remember just the other 
day a man came all the way from New York to have a 
little surgical operation performed. I had been kind to 


PERSONALITY 


29 


that man many years ago, before he climbed np in the 
business world. He was in trouble once and I helped 
him. He had little or no money to pay me. He was 
grateful for my friendship and for my professional aid, 
and now he comes a thousand miles, after he has suc¬ 
ceeded in the East, and when he left my office to go to 
the hospital he said, “Now remember, Doctor, you were 
good to me once when I didn’t have money; now charge 
the limit, because I am able to pay.” It will do you 
just as much good in the future, sometimes, to have some¬ 
one declare dividends of gratitude to you and show 
appreciation for a kindness done them—I say, it will do 
you just as much good as to clip coupons from the bonds 
you have bought with your hard-earned shekels, and laid 
by against a rainy day. 

V. SYSTEMATIC HABITS—ORGANIZATION 

The business woman must be a creature of systematic 
habits. She must learn the value of organization. From 
your bedroom to your office, from the dressing table at 
your home to your desk down town, start in to perfect a 
system—a regular, efficient, time-saving way of doing 
things. 

This is one of the things that men are wont to find 
fault with in the business woman, that she flutters about, 
makes a lot of noise, but that she is slow to get down to 
business; that she doesn’t appreciate the value of organ¬ 
ization. 

You may have heard the story of the old stage driver 
who used to drive over a mountain route leading out of 
Denver, Colorado, before the days of the railroad. The 
coach was crowded one day and a small lad was sitting 
up on the seat with the driver, and he greatly enjoyed 
the skillful manner in which the driver could crack his 
whip to knock a pebble off a stone by the roadside 
or clip a leaf off an overhanging branch; how he 
could throw his whip out to flick a fly off the ear of 
one of the forward horses. So, as they were about to 


30 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


pass under a tree from an overhanging branch of which 
a hornet’s nest was suspended, the little fellow besought 
the old stage driver to flick the hornet’s nest with his 
whip, whereupon the experienced and grizzled old driver 
replied, 4 ‘No siree, son. It’s all right to flick pebbles 
and leaves, flies and snakes, but don’t touch that— 
them’s organized .’ 9 And this story but serves to illus¬ 
trate the value and importance of system and organiza¬ 
tion in the modern business world. 

1. Promptness. Be on time. Keep your appoint¬ 
ments. Be punctual. Don’t let the men crack jokes 
about you while they wait for you at business appoint¬ 
ments or at the theater. Change this notion men have 
that it takes a woman all day to dress. I wonder how 
many of you could tell me how many minutes it does 
take you to dress. Of course, something would depend 
on which dress you were going to put on. I exhort you 
to become sensible and practical in these matters if you 
are going to compete with men in the business world. 
I don’t want you to become mannish in your dress, noth¬ 
ing of the kind, hut I do ask that you become practical 
in your ways, while at the same time you are entitled 
to be, in every sense, womanly. 

2. The Art of Adaptation. Study the question of 
time and its adaptation to your work. Find out how 
long it takes you to do things and go to places, so that 
when you make an appointment—when you promise to 
he at a certain place at a certain time, you know it is 
physically possible to get there. "When you start, allow 
yourself time to do things, so that you will not arrive at 
your destination out of breath and rushed to death. 
That is bad for your nerves and it is fatal to your busi¬ 
ness reputation to acquire the habit of always showing 
up late. Don’t forget the slogan we talked of in the 
introduction. It is a good thing for the business woman 
to adopt the mottoes, first: Do It Now; and second: Be 
On Time. 

3. Stick-to-it-iveness. When you go into a thing, 
stick. Don’t be a quitter. Now that should not be taken 


PERSONALITY 


31 


too literally. If you find you are on the wrong track, 
that you have made a bad decision and are strictly up 
against it, back out, climb down. Don’t be foolhardy, 
but on the other hand, when you have every reason to 
believe that you have made the best possible decision, 
that your choice was the best one under the circum¬ 
stances, then go through, stick, carry on. 

And, as you organize your business, your methods of 
doing things; develop a practical working system, with¬ 
out in any way becoming a slave to it. Have a place for 
everything, and everything in its place, but don’t make 
a fetish out of order, or a god out of system, or a religion 
out of method and organization. 

I remember a few years ago a mother brought her 
son to me because he was so disorderly about the house. 
She thought there must be something wrong with his 
mind. I lit into the fellow and told him how he would 
turn out by and by if he didn’t develop system and order. 
He took me seriously. He went home, put his bedroom 
into tip-top shape, and in a few weeks the mother tele¬ 
phoned to me in great distress, saying that the lad did 
nothing now from morning till night but go around keep¬ 
ing things in order, and asking me if I would please try to 
undo what I did to him. You see he went to the other 
extreme. You can build such an elaborate system and 
become such a crank on order and method that you waste 
all your time between your devotion to order and neat¬ 
ness at home and keeping your filing system up-to-date 
at the office. You have no time to make a living, or do 
anything else in the world. 

4. Common Sense in Business. There are some 
things you can attend to only when you get to them, you 
can’t have a system for everything. That was well 
shown by the case of the business woman in the East who 
came to die of pneumonia. She had climbed up from a 
stenographer to the position of treasurer of a large cor¬ 
poration. She was a thorough-going, systematic busi¬ 
ness woman. She was stricken down with pneumonia in 
the prime of life, and after the doctors had given her up, 


32 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


saying she had but a few hours to live, her mother 
wanted the pastor of her church to come and offer com¬ 
fort and consolation during these last hours. To the 
mother’s suggestion, the daughter assented, and when 
the minister arrived she is reported to have said to him: 
4 ‘Now, I don’t know just what you expect of me. I 
understand I am going to die soon. I may not die 
gracefully, you know I never have died before, but if 
you will let me know what is expected of me I will be 
very glad to comply. I am not in the least afraid to die, 
but it is a new experience to me.” Rather interesting, 
isn’t it, and I think rather typical of that high type of 
mind and that noble spirit which characterizes the real, 
womanly, American business woman, and I tell the story 
here to illustrate the fact that there are some things you 
cannot develop a system for. They belong to the exi¬ 
gencies and emergencies of life, and you have to meet 
them skillfully and artistically one by one as they 
cross your business path. There is a systematic way to 
live, but it would appear there is no systematic way of 
dying. 

VI. WOMANLINESS—REFINEMENT 

No business woman can afford to lose or compromise 
that innate refinement which belongs to every individual 
of her sex. The business woman who will make the 
highest success of her calling is one who will go out into 
the game to succeed as a woman. You don’t have to be 
mannish in order to be a successful business woman. 
You can dress like a woman—yes, you even can carry a 
powder puff—(I hope you wdll have the good taste and 
good judgment to use it in the midst of a little privacy 
and not be mopping your face on every street corner 
or before the gaze of the multitude), but at any rate you 
are entitled to have one. 

I want to speak to you as a man. We don’t expect 
you to give up these little things that characterize your 
®ex, any more than we would want to give up some of 


PERSONALITY 


33 


the little peculiarities which you are accustomed to think 
upon as being masculine. In fact, I am bound to admit 
that the powder puff and the other sort of things that go 
along w T ith it, make a lot of difference in the appearance 
of some of the women of the business world. But don’t 
spread it on too thick, it makes you conspicuous, it gives 
you dead away. Be an artist at it. I see women every 
day that I think ought to go to the theater, or some 
other place where they teach the art of makeup, and 
learn how to put it on right. 

You know a woman is sized up by her personal 
appearance, her dress, etc., even more than a man. A 
business man can wear trousers that bag at the knee, 
and can be awkward and angular, and get by better 
than a business woman who is unfortunately rigged 
up. 

1. Culture. In your business battles, remember 
always you are a woman: be a lady. And, as I have in¬ 
timated, it is perfectly proper for a woman to be a bit 
vain; that is natural to your sex, just as it is for a man 
to be egotistic. Of course you don’t like us to be too 
egotistic, it is not graceful to get an exaggerated ego to 
the point of its being a swelled head, but you are indul¬ 
gent of a small amount of egotism in the case of the man; 
and so w T e men, while we may be prone to make jokes 
about it, are indulgent of a very considerable amount of 
vanity in the gentler sex. We rather expect it, and I am 
not ashamed to say that we rather like it. We like to 
see you neat, and careful about your dress and appear¬ 
ance, and it is not out of place for the business woman 
to cultivate all these things that make her attractive and 
interesting to the world in general and to men in par¬ 
ticular. 

Culture, education, attainment, all these things if 
properly utilized and judiciously employed are capable 
of promoting the success and enhancing the value of the 
business woman. 

2. Friendly Contact. As business women, learn to 
make friendly contact with the business world, instead 


34 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


of the flirtatious sort. The business woman has nothing 
to gain by stepping down from her dignified position of 
vantage to become vulgar or unduly familiar with the 
men of the business world. 

I think this is well illustrated by a story which my 
wife told me the other day about one of her patients. 
This woman, a middle aged, matronly sort of soul, came 
into her office indignant, and on the verge of a nervous 
blow-up, because just that morning she had been “in¬ 
sulted, grossly insulted/’ by a prominent business man 
here in Chicago, and as my wife drew out the story this 
appeared to be the gist of it. She was around soliciting 
advertising for the program of some charity bazaar, or 
some sort of philanthropic project, and she was inclined 
to be ingratiating and coaxing, to coax the advertise¬ 
ments at liberal rates out of busy business men. In this 
particular case she admitted she was smiling rather pro¬ 
fusely on her victim, and when there was a little delay 
in getting his name entered on the dotted line, she leaned 
forward and made some very personal remark about his 
being a good looking man, etc., etc., whereupon he 
reached forward, tickled her under the chin and said, 
“Oh, you kid!’’ 

Now, this woman, I think, largely deserved what she 
got. She was sowing for it and should not have been 
surprised when the harvest came. She was not playing 
a fair game, and I tell the story here merely as an illus¬ 
tration of the fact that women cannot invade the busi¬ 
ness world with the idea of utilizing their sex charms, or 
of presuming upon the chivalry of men for the purpose 
of seeking favors or gaining success, without having this 
thing come back on them. You know “chickens will 
come home to roost,’ 9 and the woman who makes a flirta¬ 
tious contact with the commercial world is going to be re¬ 
paid with an avalanche of insult. It is sure to come, you 
can’t avert it. 

Those natural, innate, womanly charms which are a 
part of your personality, and which are quite separate 
and distinct from your more specific charms and attri- 


PERSONALITY 


35 


butes of sex, are yours to use, just as much as virility 
and manliness is the stock in trade of the business man. 
These winning and charming little ways of the female 
are legitimate stock in trade for the business woman, 
but, I repeat, learn to make friendly contact but not 
flirtatious contact. 

3. The Art of Making Friends. You know friend¬ 
liness is a sort of blend between sympathy and discre¬ 
tion. It is a wonderful thing in the business world, but 
the business woman, in indulging in this sort of thing, 
especially as concerns men, should remember the biblical 
injunction where it says something about being as “wise 
as serpents and as harmless as doves. ’ ’ Furthermore, re¬ 
member if you have a business proposition you don’t 
have to become too friendly or intimate with the business 
man to interest him in it. He will consider it on its 
merits. 

Learn how to say good morning, how to greet people, 
how to approach them. Study the art of business con¬ 
versation. Learn how to handle your prospects and, 
within discreet and proper limits, you can again follow 
the injunction of Paul, to be “all things to all men,” 
and in another place I think it is the same authority 
who said, “When in Rome do as the Romans do.” This 
is all good advice for business women if you take it in 
the proper spirit. You should study the temperament 
and character of the folks you are doing business with 
and seek to meet them on their own ground, and adapt 
your approach to their special peculiarities. And again 
I want to quote from the wise man who said, “They 
that would have friends must show themselves 
friendly.” 

4. Sympathy. Now, as business women, you need 
to learn to use sympathy with discretion. It is a dan¬ 
gerous thing for women to get too sympathetic. It’s all 
right to be sympathetic with the women you are doing 
business with, but don’t get over-sympathetic with 
the men. Above all things, I beg of you, don’t get the 
notion of “mothering” them, unless you are ready to 


36 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


retire from your business activities and you have decided 
forthwith in all haste to secure for yourself a home of 
your own over which you may preside. 

Now understand, ladies, I am not objecting to a 
business woman finding her mate while she is engaged 
in the supposedly sordid activities of her commercial 
calling. Men marry their stenographers and private 
secretaries; it is not deemed improper for a man to find 
his mate as he is engaged in the commercial struggle, and 
I see nothing wrong about a business woman finding her 
Romeo in the same way, but that is the exception that 
only goes to prove the rule. You cannot afford to be¬ 
come a sort of Juliet to every man you meet just because 
some day one such man may be your prospective hus¬ 
band. 

I am sure you understand me. I am talking now, not 
about the time when you may lose your heart to some 
good business man and in due time marry him, but 
about the every-day contact of the business woman with 
the business world. 

5. The Mothering Instinct. You know it is hard 
for some women to get away from this maternal instinct. 
They simply want to mother all the little children they 
meet, and all the younger girls, and sometimes the ‘older 
men. They don’t mean the least harm by it, they are 
simply giving expression to their innermost nature—to 
their real heart’s desire. But it is a dangerous thing— 
it should be controlled. 

It is even dangerous to try to be a sister to some men, 
let alone to mother them. As a physician and as a man 
who has seen a good deal of this thing on all sides, let 
me admonish you to keep this mothering instinct dor¬ 
mant until you have a family, or adopt some orphan to 
raise. You go about showing that natural womanly 
dignity which all men are bound to respect—that is all 
real men. Of course there are human moral ghouls who 
go about preying upon any sort of woman who is willing 
to fall a victim to their crafty wiles; but real men re¬ 
spect good women. 


PERSONALITY 


37 


6. Womanly Dignity. The red-blooded, clean- 
minded, chivalrous man unfailingly respects womanly 
dignity, and he will always give you fair consideration 
without your in any way being called upon to use your 
charms of sex for trading advantages. 

As business women, play fair. Don’t stoop to trade 
sex attraction in the business arena for commercial ad¬ 
vantage. Be responsive without being familiar. Show 
appreciation, but show it without putting yourself under 
obligations to any man. Of course you must be human, 
but there is a safe and sane middle of the road policy 
that you can follow that will enable you to avoid the 
ditch of undue familiarity on the one hand, and that of 
unfeeling, prudish frigidity on the other. 

There are a lot of men who are human and decent. 
They are normal and average. They are not sex hunt¬ 
ers. Vice is a sport to some unfeeling, unthinking men, 
their souls are shriveled, their moral intellect dwarfed; 
they are sex monstrosities, they feel toward womankind 
as the great hunter does toward wild game. They 
hardly have a normal respect for their own mothers and 
sisters, and it is these social adventurers among the men 
of the world that the business woman should learn to 
shun. 

7. Appreciation means that you must develop an 
interest in folks. Develop that side of your nature 
which is interested in human affairs; simple, old-fash¬ 
ioned kindness, that’s all. 

Do you appreciate the business which people give 
you? Are you truly appreciative of the cooperation of 
the folks that do business with you? Does it become 
merely a mechanical form that you go through? Is 
the human touch leaking out of your business life ? Are 
you becoming a mere commercial machine? 

Remember this, the salesmanship, the personnel, is 
the only thing in any business concern or business enter¬ 
prise that can be indefinitely improved. There is a limit 
to the technical improvement of products, but there is 
no limit to the improvement of salesmanship—there is 


38 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


no limit to the improvement of the quality of the men 
and women who do the business. 

Remember that it is the duty of the one who is seek¬ 
ing business, to make the approach, to warm up, to make 
the contact with the buyer. Don’t expect a buyer to 
make advances to the seller; it is the salesman’s game 
to make that warm hearted, appreciative, winning con¬ 
tact with the buyer. 

VII. EXPERIENCE—LIFE’S SAVINGS BANK 

Experience is nothing more nor less than the trick 
of turning our accumulated memories into increased 
business ability and skill. Experience is the savings 
bank of life. Most successful business men and women, 
whatever their hereditary endowment and their educa¬ 
tional acquirements, are usually found to be graduates 
from the University of Hard Knocks. The struggle is 
ofttimes intense, the difficulties may seem to be insur¬ 
mountable, but determination, if it becomes your watch¬ 
word, will usually enable you to reach every reasonable 
goal. Ambition will crown you with success if you are 
not attempting to attain the impossible. 

1. Learn to Give and Take. In this connection, 
let me admonish you that you early learn to be a good 
loser. Learn how to take your current defeats good 
naturedly. You cannot always win. There are bound to 
be downs as well as ups in the struggle of life. Acquire a 
broad vision, a broad view of things in this world, and 
as you play the game of life remember that you are 
playing for double stakes, not only for success in the 
business world, as you travel on through this vale of 
tears, but you are also indirectly, perhaps even uncon¬ 
sciously, playing a still greater game. You are acquir¬ 
ing a character that may survive this sphere of mortal 
doom and be accounted worthy of an imperishable crown, 
which I think most of us believe awaits all who have done 
well their allotted tasks on earth and have proved faith¬ 
ful (sometimes even if not altogether successful) in the 


PERSONALITY 


39 


long and intense struggle for better things in the econ¬ 
omic, social, and spiritual circles of their day and gen¬ 
eration. 

Experience, too, is a thing that enables us to survive 
during times of stress and strain. The business world 
must, every now and then, pass through hard times, and 
during such times the law of survival becomes very 
cruel in its weeding out of inefficient business men and 
women—the “lame ducks.” 

Now, business experience may be roughly divided into 
two classes; acquiring facts and learning people. 

2. Acquiring Facts—A Growing Knowledge of 
Your Business. The more facts you know about your 
business the more competent you are apt to be. Expe¬ 
rience enables you to develop and improve your 
technique of approach. You learn better how to meet 
people, how to get their confidence, how to present your 
proposition, how to overcome their objections, how to 
win their favor and approval. 

Further, experience enables you to become a better 
advertiser. That is, you learn how better to trim your 
sales so as to travel with the swelling breeze. Experience 
helps you to know how to ride on the crest of a popular 
wave of opinion. The successful business woman must 
study and come to understand the laws of mob psy¬ 
chology, the behavior of public opinion. It is business 
experience that enables the men and women of affairs 
to make good guesses, fortunate prognostications of the 
future, which outside observers often term “a streak 
of good luck.” 

3. The Art of Advertising. You know the success¬ 
ful business woman must understand the art of adver¬ 
tising. In season and out of season, you are everlast¬ 
ingly an advertiser. Some of the most successful busi¬ 
ness men have been such because they were the most 
successful advertisers. And let me exhort you women 
of the business world to study the tides of public opinion 
and the shifting winds of popularity and publicity, that 
you may be able to hitch your proposition on at the 


40 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


right time when the tide is coming your way. I was 
much impressed with this sort of thing the other day, 
when Coue was in this country and everybody was talk¬ 
ing about “Day by day in every way,” etc., and coming 
out of Kansas City on the train I looked out of the car 
window and my eye caught this sign, neatly executed 
and nailed up over a gasoline filling station near the 
depot, in a small Missouri town: 

Day by day in every way 

Our service is better and better; 

Our water is wetter and wetter; 

Our oil is slicker and slicker; 

Our gas fires quicker and quicker. 

4. Study the Other Fellow. So, in this way, you 
see, shrewd men and women of business are able to draw 
dividends from other people’s work—they are able to 
drink the water that someone else has pumped. They 
are able to get value on the time devoted by countless 
other energetic men and women of business to the forma¬ 
tion of public opinion and the creation of a popular state 
of mind, and it is in no way unfair. You are not work¬ 
ing a hardship or effecting an injustice to any other 
living soul. This sort of thing is merely the art of set¬ 
ting your sails to the favoring wind while you learn how 
to sleep and rest in a time of calm; how to use the per¬ 
formances of old Mother Nature on the one hand, and 
the fortuitous happenings of your fellow men on the 
other. It is merely a question of good judgment, discre¬ 
tion and sagacity. 

Study the tide tables of commerce and business. 
Contemplate the mass movements in human psychology. 
Study your fellow men and the way they think, as in¬ 
dividuals and as a nation. My wife once asked me for 
a good definition of education, and after thinking a mo¬ 
ment I told her one that I never have been able to im¬ 
prove upon in my own mind. It was this: that man is 
well educated, who, each day he lives, gets one more 
man’s viewpoint of life. Now, if you want to become 


PERSONALITY 


41 


successful business women, try to find out how the other 
fellow looks at you and what he thinks about you. 

Experience will also enable you to make a more 
artistic presentation of your proposition. 

5. Life—Learning People. Now, in the second 
place, when we come to analyze human experience, we 
see that we are not only, as the years go by, able to ac¬ 
quire more facts, more knowledge about our proposition, 
but as the result of living we come to know people better, 
we understand human nature better, we learn how to 
study folks. We learn types of people and the best way 
to approach them and to deal with them successfully. 

You must become well read, you must be a well posted 
business woman. Read the magazines, read the daily 
papers—at least the summary of the news. You must 
be familiar with a great many things and be able to 
discuss a great many people. Study the other fellow’s 
game: that is, I mean, watch your competitor. Be in¬ 
telligent on what he is doing and familiar with how he 
is doing it. Don’t knock your competitor, merely study 
his methods; don’t give him free advertising by knock¬ 
ing, simply study the technique of his game and learn 
how to use his thunder—if it is good. 

6. A Man’s World. And, now, ladies, I don’t 
want to offend you, but I want to talk to you very 
frankly for a moment, and I want you to take it in all 
good grace, even though your speaker may happen to 
be a man. As things are organized and conducted at 
the present time this old world is, as I have heard my 
wife so often say, “a man’s world.” Man is the head 
of the family in this world; when a woman marries she 
gives up her name and takes his. I know of no particu¬ 
lar biologic or ethical reason why this should be so, be¬ 
cause, in some respects at least, man is no more fitted 
to be the head of the family than woman (in fact I 
have known many a case where the woman was far more 
fit to be the head) and I am not telling you anything 
new when I say that in many families the woman is the 
real head. But what I mean to get at is this: the busi- 


42 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


ness world is conducted, managed and directed, largely 
by business men. The business world is fundamentally 
a man’s world. The woman is, at the present time, play¬ 
ing the role of an invader. True, she is getting more or 
less of a welcome here and there, but she is not welcome 
all along the line yet and it is up to her to carry on this 
invasion in which she is engaged with wisdom and diplo¬ 
macy. The woman is under present obligation to culti¬ 
vate, in a special manner, the friendship of the business 
world she is entering. I am particularly anxious that you 
should learn to succeed as a woman , and to do it all in a 
gracious and womanly manner. I ask you to look 
especially for woman’s opportunity in the business 
world. There are special openings and special oppor¬ 
tunities that women can fill better than they can some 
others, and there are lines of business, and particular 
openings in various lines of business, that welcome 
women and which are more especially adapted to women. 
Therefore, make up your mind to go out into the busi¬ 
ness world of men, to succeed as a woman, and all the 
while to keep the respect of business men. 

Now, ladies, I have finished the discussion of the per¬ 
sonality of the business woman. It must be clear to you 
that to be successful she must have a good physique, a 
healthy body, a keen and active mind, that she must 
have a reasonably well balanced ductless gland system 
that endows her with at least a moderate amount of 
cleverness, and on top of this she must possess intelligent 
conviction, legitimate self-confidence, reasonable self- 
control, all the while being systematic in her habits, as 
well as an organizer. Furthermore, that she can suc¬ 
ceed in business life, all the while retaining her woman¬ 
liness, refinement and culture, and that these various 
traits and virtues, if backed up by experience, will form 
the basis for real business success. Remember that you 
can do much to improve six of these traits which are not 
altogether hereditary, and that even in the case of clever¬ 
ness, which is largely hereditary, you can do much by 
experience to develop that trait. Use your woman’s 


PERSONALITY 


43 


intuition, but don’t bank too much upon it. Learn to 
use good judgment, common sense, “horse sense.” 

And remember that every day you live you are 
acquiring more experience and that if you will learn 
properly to interpret and understand your experience, 
to profit by your mistakes, you will have learned one of 
the greatest of those lessons which are so essential to 
business success. 


PART II 


THE PILLARS OF HEALTH—BUSI¬ 
NESS ENERGY 

I N our discussion of personality, we have been dealing 
with the psychologic, or mental, elements of business 
success; and now we come to the discussion of health— 
the physical elements of prosperity. The foundations 
of health consist in heredity, hygiene and sanitation. 
After all, heredity is the basis of both longevity and 
vitality, and you should remember that the ductless 
glands represent the channel by which heredity operates 
in influencing our health as well as our personality. 

Important as is hygiene in matters of health, it is 
probably not, after all, such a powerful factor as in¬ 
heritance. I don’t want to seem to be attaching too 
much importance to heredity, but the more the science 
of biology is advanced, the more important we discover 
heredity to be. In emphasizing heredity, I don’t mean 
to belittle environment, or the importance of education, 
or to detract from the value of personal hygiene. 

Heredity and Environment. Heredity is not the 
only thing that must be considered when it comes to the 
matter of personal health and business success; never¬ 
theless, and notwithstanding all the other influences con¬ 
cerned in health, your inheritance is the one big thing 
that largely determines your degree of physical well¬ 
being. 

Hygiene is the art of living. It has to do with your 
personal habits. Sanitation represents the environment. 
We can do much to prevent disease by giving attention 
to water supply, milk supply, sewage disposal, and 
other problems of kindred nature. By this means we 
prevent many diseases, like typhoid fever, and it is our 
duty, especially that of my profession, to see that ade¬ 
quate laws are made and properly enforced to safeguard 
the health of the public. 


44 


THE PILLARS OF HEALTH 


45 


It is a doctor’s business to give you as long a life as 
possible. Our responsibility in this respect is empha¬ 
sized by the story of the weary earth pilgrim who de¬ 
parted this life and on presenting himself at the pearly 
gates on high, was refused admittance to Paradise. 
Saint Peter told him that his name was not on the list 
of eligibles. But this was not pleasant news to our pil¬ 
grim, and he said to Saint Peter: “Why, Brother Peter, 
I certainly have been led to believe that I would go to 
Glory when I died, and I have tried to live the way they 
taught me, and I would hate very much to have to go to 
the other place. Won’t you please look the list over 
again? There must be some mistake.” So, the story 
goes, Saint Peter consented, and ere long appeared again 
on the celestial battlements, and with profuse apology 
bade the pilgrim enter in through the pearly gates, say¬ 
ing: “I beg your pardon, brother, your name is on the 
list, but it is away down on the list. Man, you’re not 
due up here for thirty years yet. Who was your 
doctor ? ’ ’ 

Now, you see, the men of my profession have a re¬ 
sponsibility—not to keep you from going to Heaven 
when you die, but to keep you out of Heaven as long as 
possible. It is our business to keep you healthy and 
active, in the harness, doing your work acceptably to a 
good old age. That’s the problem, and in order to do 
this, in addition to your heredity, w T e must teach you 
concerning personal hygiene and see that you live in the 
midst of a suitable sanitary environment. 

Let us now turn our attention to the discussion of 
the seven pillars of health, or those habits of living that 
are conducive to the generation of the largest volume of 
physical vitality and business energy. 

I. FRESH AIR AND SUNLIGHT 

In our discussion of personality, we drew the plans 
and specifications for an ideal and efficient success 
engine; but this wonderful personality machine is quite 


46 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


useless unless we have steam—health—energy with which 
to run it. So good health comes, after all, to be the 
one thing essential to normal commercial activity. 
It becomes the physical thing which is indispensable 
to the exhibition of pep—to the achievement of suc¬ 
cess. 

A lot of people are committing suicide on the install¬ 
ment plan because they do not get enough fresh air and 
sunlight. We need sunlight in our workrooms and in 
our offices. It is the fountain of energy, it is a great germ 
destroyer. No known microbe can live for five minutes 
in a direct ray of sunlight. We want fresh air in our 
sleeping rooms, and we should frequently go on hikes, 
eating air and bathing in sunlight. 

The study of biology leads us to believe that the aver¬ 
age length of life of man should be about one hundred 
years; and some day, perhaps not in this generation, but 
some day, a coroner’s inquest will be held to place the 
responsibility for death, every time an American citizen 
dies under fifty years of age. 

1. Man an Out-Door Animal. Man was made to 
live in a garden. He is, by nature, an out-door animal. 
Many of the diseases that we suffer from, such as colds, 
pneumonia, “flu,” tuberculosis, etc., are largely house 
diseases. Animals that live in the open do not have these 
disorders; and while we should do everything in our 
power to prevent these diseases, we should recognize 
that the chief thing in their prevention is fresh air and 
sunshine. Try to work in an office that is light, and get 
a bedroom that has sun in it some part of the day. 
Darkness and disease go together. Health and sunlight 
are companions. 

2. Natural Breathing. You should learn how to 
breathe deeply—to use your diaphragm, not to breathe 
just on top of your lungs as if you had on a tight corset. 
Most of the modern corsets are constructed on lines that 
permit you to breathe properly, they do not lace you 
about the middle of the waist as the old-fashioned cor¬ 
sets did. A woman should breathe just like a man and 


THE PILLARS OF HEALTH 


47 


she will if properly clothed and if she has not formed 
wrong breathing habits. 

Have your chest and abdomen both take part in the 
breathing exercise. I will illustrate to you, holding back 
my coat here, just how the front of the body should move 
out after the contour of a barrel, the greatest expansion 
being about the middle of the trunk while both chest and 
abdomen participate in the exercise. I well remember 
showing an Irish woman how to do this in the clinic one 
day. She watched me a while, when she exclaimed: “Oh, 
shure, Professor, I undershtand now, you want me to 
breathe just like a cow does, from shtem to shtern.” 
And so I do. I want you to breathe just like a new 
born baby does and like any animal does. 

But there is a lot of nonsense taught about this deep 
breathing. You can’t just stand still and engage in deep 
breathing exercises and get more oxygen into your 
blood. Such exercises are good for the liver and for 
the circulation of the blood, and for the brain—they 
sweep out the cobwebs. But breathing exercises for the 
purpose of getting oxygen into the blood have to be 
taken along with vigorous physical exertion, so as to 
create a greater demand for air and oxygen. 

It is also an excellent practice to learn to laugh 
heartily. If you see something that is really funny, 
don’t indulge in just an aristocratic cackle, but cut loose 
and enjoy a real good, hearty laugh. It’s good for the 
digestion, too, and it’s good for the circulation and the 
blues. 

3. Blood Purifiers. If you want a real good blood 
purifier, drink plenty of water and breathe fresh air. 
That will beat all the sarsaparilla and the other patent 
nostrums you can buy at the drug store. Do you re¬ 
member when they used to give us sulphur and molasses 
in the spring? Well, the sulphur may have been a lax¬ 
ative and have done some good for a day or two. But 
that is not the way to purify blood. You purify your 
blood by drinking pure water and breathing fresh air, 
and that is all there is to it. The rest is all superstition. 


48 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


Get out of doors with the coming of spring, play 
games, take walks, picnic, have fun, that is the way to 
purify your blood—of course, using common sense 
about not putting impure foods and drinks into your 
system. The outdoor life, the natural life, let that be 
your one great aim in all your efforts toward health 
culture. 

4. Ventilation and Humidity. If you are going to 
be cooped up in an office all winter, make a study of 
ventilation; learn how to secure fresh air without chill¬ 
ing drafts. Learn where to sit and how to face, and 
otherwise how to adjust yourself to the ventilation 
problem of the office in which you have to spend so much 
time each day. 

Remember, further, that one of the great mistakes 
we make is to overdress in an over heated office. If 
your office temperature is kept pretty high during the 
winter, dress about the same as you do in the summer, 
except perhaps to have the extremities a little more 
warmly clothed, and have suitable wraps to put on when 
you go out of doors. 

Try to keep the temperature of your working rooms 
below 68°, 65° would be better, as a rule; but the ques¬ 
tion of humidity is of even more importance. The rea¬ 
son we have so many colds and respiratory troubles in 
the winter time is that we breathe air that is too dry. 
The humidity of a business office, in order to be ideal 
should range between 40 per cent, and 60 per cent., as 
shown on the wet and dry bulb thermometers designed 
for indicating relative humidity. You should remember 
that when it falls much below 40 the air becomes very 
irritating to the nose, throat and lungs; whereas, if the 
humidity goes much above 70 per cent., the atmosphere 
becomes sultry just as it does on a hot summer’s day 
when the air is filled with moisture. 

Humidity is secured either by turning live steam 
into the air, or evaporating pans of water on top of the 
radiators; or, in connection with furnace heat, by hav¬ 
ing large basins of water evaporating in the furnace. 


THE PILLARS OF HEALTH 


49 


II. FOODS AND DIGESTION 

If sunlight and fresh air constitute the first pillar 
in the temple of health, foods and digestion may be re¬ 
garded as the second and next most important pillar. 
Good digestion is a wonderful thing. You probably 
don’t appreciate what a good stomach is unless you 
have once had trouble—suffered from dyspepsia. 

They tell a story about John D. Rockefeller, a few 
years ago, when he was having stomach trouble. He 
strolled down across his estate one day about noon and 
found an Irish laborer sitting on a bridge, eating his 
noon-day lunch. This Irishman had some hard boiled 
eggs, bologna sausage, a pickle, a bit of cheese, and some 
rye bread, and when Rockefeller looked at the layout 
it gave him gastric shivers. Contemplating his own 
stomach troubles, he said to the Irishman: “Pat, I’d 
give anything in the world if I had a stomach like 
yours.” Well, you know it’s hard to get anything on an 
Irishman, so Pat quickly came back and said: “Ah, Mr. 
Rockefeller, ye’ve already got all the workin’ man’s 
money, and now ye want his digestion, too.” 

1. Calories. One of the first things I would like to 
impress upon business women is the fact that we put 
food into our systems to burn up for purposes of heat 
and energy, in just the same way that they shovel coal 
into a furnace. Every ounce of food we eat contains a 
varying number of heat units, or, as we commonly call 
them, calories. 

You should know something about food values. For 
instance, the average woman needs in the neighborhood 
of two thousand calories a day in order to be properly 
supplied with heat and energy, and to hold her weight. 
Some of you need more, some less. Now, let me explain 
that an ordinary good thick slice of bread contains one 
hundred calories, and that a good, orthodox square of 
butter contains one hundred calories. A big orange 
contains almost one hundred calories, and a small steak 
contains one hundred calories. A glass of fairly rich 

4 


50 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


milk is just about one hundred calories. Now, you can 
get a simple food table of this sort, and in a short time 
you will become familiar with the number of calories 
contained in average servings of commonly used foods, 
so that you will know about what you are eating without 
having to watch your diet so closely as to get indi¬ 
gestion. 

Remember this, there is no such thing as nerve food, 
brain food, etc. All good food is brain food. You can¬ 
not eat any special food to make up for mental laziness. 
There is no special diet you can feed your brain to make 
it work without going to the trouble of concentrating 
your mind. 

If you are over weight, you have a great handicap in 
the business world. When it comes to diet, watch your 
step and see that you do not have to carry around too 
much excess baggage. 

2. Digestion. The first essential to good digestion, 
outside of selecting proper food, is to masticate fairly 
well; but don’t make a hobby of mastication like Brother 
Fletcher did. If you are sick, it may be well to learn to 
Fletcherize, but when you have an apple to eat chew it 
down. And by the way, eat it all, don’t follow 
Fletcher’s teaching to make a human cider mill out of 
your mouth, to chew the apple, swallow the juice and 
discard the pulp. Take it all, or, as the little fellow said 
to his playmate—“There ain’t gonna be no core to this 
apple.” 

The American people suffer so terribly from con¬ 
stipation, due not only to shallow breathing, lack of 
exercise, and worry, but also to the fact that their diet 
is too highly concentrated. You need, especially you 
business women, to eat more roughage with your meals. 
You need, every time you eat a meal, to swallow a 
cellulose broom to sweep the meal out of the system. 
Don’t worry about swallowing the apple seeds, you 
can’t get appendicitis that way. I’ve taken out too 
many of them—and I’ve never seen a seed in one yet. 
If you could get appendicitis from swallowing seeds, 


THE PILLARS OF HEALTH 


51 


you would all have died before you were eight years old, 
from all the cherry pits and apple seeds you swallowed 
when you were kids. 

Don’t overlook the effect of the mind on digestion. 
You know the stomach, unfortunately, is on a party line 
telephone system very much like these farmer party 
lines, so that when the stomach bell rings you want al¬ 
ways to ask—“Who’s talking?” Nine times out of ten 
it’s the appendix, the gall bladder, or more likely just 
your nervous system—stomach trouble in the head. A 
lot of so-called dyspepsia is purely nervous indigestion. 
The mind has a great influence on the stomach, and the 
keenness of your appetite determines the strength of 
your digestive juices—“appetite equals juice.” If you 
are not hungry skip a meal, take a little exercise, and if 
your appetite doesn’t come back, you must be really 
sick. 

3. Food Elements. You should know something 
about the different food elements that go to make up your 
daily diet, such as proteins, starch, sugar, fats, salts and 
cellulose. Water in varying quantities is also found in 
all our food stuffs. The protein element is the part that 
builds muscle, the element that replaces the wear and tear 
to the body itself, and our common protein foods are 
lean meat, white of egg, cheese, and the nitrogenous or 
gluten element of bread and other cereals. 

Proteins are essential foods, very essential to life, 
but when over-eaten they are mischief makers, they do 
not burn up into smoke and water like the starches, 
sugars and fats, but leave behind clinkers and cinders 
which can overtax the kidneys, and clog up the system. 
It is essential, therefore, that we do not over eat of these 
elements; it is in this connection that most business peo¬ 
ple make their greatest blunder; they eat too much meat 
while they eat too little of the fruits and vegetables . 

No doubt you have heard about vitamins. They are 
substances found in foods, which, while not directly 
concerned in the nutritive value of the food, are highly 
important to health, in that they serve to prevent certain 


52 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


diseases. Don’t worry about buying vitamins at the 
drug store. If you think you need any just take some 
milk, or an orange, or any other raw food. 

Oranges, tomatoes and milk contain practically all 
the known vitamins, and if you are living on a diet that 
has a good variety of foods in it you will be getting all 
the vitamins you need, and, if in the springtime, you 
think you are missing any, eat a yeast cake or two. But 
it is not necessary to take yeast regularly in order to get 
your vitamins. If you need them it is only necessary 
to eat a little to supply that need. 

The starches , sugars and fats furnish you with heat 
and energy. They are the real coal for the furnace. The 
salts are necessary for the bones and for other chemical 
purposes in the body. The cellulose is the broom we eat 
to sweep the meal out. Cellulose gives bulk and prevents 
constipation. The bran of the wheat is typical cellulose. 
Many of our vegetables, like cabbage, are largely 
cellulose. 

It is not necessary to pay much attention to food 
combinations. Most of you who have good digestion 
and chew your food fairly well will get along without 
dyspepsia. Those with sick stomachs will do well to 
consider combinations, but the question of food com¬ 
binations is one largely imaginary when it comes to well 
stomachs. 

4. Mistakes Made at Meals. Before leaving the 
subject of diet and digestion, it might be well to call 
attention to a number of common mistakes made by 
business women in connection with their diet. I may 
mention the following: 

a. The number of meals. A great many business 
women who have a tendency toward obesity would do 
well to eat two meals a day instead of three. Remember 
that you need a certain number of calories each day to 
carry on the work of the body, to give you energy and 
to maintain your weight at a proper level. As a rule, 
it makes no difference to old Mother Nature whether 
you take this food in one meal, two, or three. Certain 


THE PILLARS OF HEALTH 


53 


nervous individuals will not do well on two meals a day, 
they will feel faint if they skip a meal; others with 
slowly emptying stomachs will do much better on two 
meals. I have found that about half of my patients 
do well on two meals a day and the other half do better 
on three meals. 

b. Over-eating . The majority of you over-eat. Of 
course, some of you under-eat. I always hesitate to men¬ 
tion this in public, for fear some woman who is under¬ 
eating will take my warning too seriously, go home and 
start on a ten day’s fast, while the rest of you fat folks 
will sit and laugh at my advice and profit little by it. 

I think over-eating is sometimes encouraged by over¬ 
seasoning. "We have cultivated an unfortunate artificial 
taste in this country. We want to have all our foods so 
highly seasoned; and you should remember that some of 
this seasoning is really injurious. It is bad, not only 
for the digestion, but it is hard on the liver. Vinegar, 
for instance, when taken in large quantities, is almost 
as hard on the liver as alcohol. Pepper and mustard 
are far from being harmless. In fact the whole ques¬ 
tion of flavoring, seasoning, and condiments can be 
summed up in this one statement: Look out for foods 
that are hot when they are cold! 

c. Soft foods. We don’t eat enough hard food to 
keep our teeth in good shape and to keep up the circula¬ 
tion in the gums so as to prevent pyorrhea. We eat too 
many soups and slops. You know if they feed a cow 
on distillery swill her teeth will drop out. We should 
eat more hard food. 

d. Eating between meals . The majority of people, 
I think, do better, if they eat their regular two or three 
meals a day, and refrain from putting tid-bits in the 
stomach between meals. You can drink lemonade be¬ 
tween meals; but ice cream soda, fruit, nuts, and choco¬ 
late creams—taken between meals, certainly are not 
good for the vast majority of you, and, sooner or later, 
you probably will have to pay the price if you indulge 
in this sort of thing. 


54 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


e. Fruits versus meat. I have already suggested 
that we eat too much meat and too little fruit. If you 
don’t like fruit, cultivate a taste for it. Eat something 
green with each meal—that is something raw, un¬ 
cooked. At least get something raw once a day. In the 
winter time, if you can’t get anything else, eat raw 
prunes. Perhaps it would he well to soak them before 
eating. I gave this advice in a lecture one time, to a 
woman’s club, and shortly thereafter I got a letter from 
a lady, begging me, in the future when I advised people 
to eat raw prunes, to tell them to soak them first. I 
don’t know what happened, though I imagine she had 
raw prunes for breakfast, a glass of water for dinner 
and a swell feeling for supper. Remember it’s the raw 
stuff that contains the vitamins. 

But, whatever you do, don’t make a fad of dietetics. 
Don’t make a religion of eating. Keep your mind off 
your stomach. No first class stomach will do good work 
if you spy on it. Buttermilk is a good food—better for 
grown folks than sweet milk, but don’t make a fad of 
it. Don’t expect to live a hundred years because you 
drink buttermilk. 

III. CIRCULATION AND THE CLOTHING 

The third pillar in the temple of health we can con¬ 
sider as the circulation of the blood and its associated 
problem of clothing. Did you ever stop to consider that 
the blood vessels in your body, through which the heart 
pumps your blood, if all placed end to end, would reach 
about a thousand miles—from here to New York City. 
That’s the job your heart has on hand from the cradle 
to the grave, and that is why, when your arteries get 
hard from old age or disease, it makes it so hard on the 
heart to pump the blood through these hardened arter¬ 
ies ; that is why your blood pressure goes up under such 
conditions. 

1. Cold Hands and Feet. You know there is 
something wrong with the circulation when, all the year 


THE PILLARS OF HEALTH 


55 


around, you suffer from cold hands and feet. You 
should do your best to improve this condition. It is a 
handicap to have people recognize the fact, when they 
shake hands with you, that your hand is cold and 
clammy. It is unfortunate that many a warm-hearted 
person has this habitual cold hand with which he must 
greet his friends. I admit that you are not always able 
entirely to overcome it, but you can often do much to 
improve this condition. 

The circulation of the blood is a nervous proposition, 
as well as a physical problem. Many of you folks who 
have cold feet and throbbing, aching heads, have them 
not only because of digestive troubles and errors in 
clothing, but also because your nervous system is out of 
tune. It is as much a question of mind as of body in 
many of these cases. 

2. Clothing—Fashion. I think, on the whole, 
women are to be congratulated for the large number of 
common sense practices that have come into fashion in 
the past ten years, as regards their clothing. I think 
in some respects you have made more progress than we 
men have, who still wear our stiff collars and cling to 
other foolish habits of dress; whereas a dozen years ago 
we used to make fun of your wasp waists, trailing 
skirts, etc. 

I do think that women make a mistake, sometimes, 
in not making a little more difference between summer 
and winter. Of course, if you have proper outdoor 
wraps, I admit there is little more reason for dressing 
warmer in winter than in summer. 

When it comes to avoiding pneumonia, I think it is 
more important to have the lower extremities well 
clothed than to worry so much about low-necked dresses. 
You have plenty of blood vessels in the face, neck and 
chest region to keep you warm, but it is the ankles and 
the legs where the “plumbing” is more exposed to the 
chill of the weather, that should be better clothed. You 
know, ordinarily, you can’t give a hen anthrax, it won’t 
catch the disease, but if you let it stand in cold water 


56 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


for a couple of hours and then inoculate it, it will take 
the disease. 

There was an old Frenchman who wrote a book 
which was to be published after his death, and when 
they opened the voluminous manuscript after his fun¬ 
eral, they found all the pages blank but one, which con¬ 
tained this single sentence: “Keep the feet warm, the 
head cool, and the bowels open. ,, 

Woman’s dress is a question of health on the one 
hand and utility on the other. Incidentally, the ques¬ 
tion of morals may be raised as regards the effect of 
woman’s dress on the male part of the population. I 
am often asked, as a physician, what my opinion is as 
to the effect of the short dress, which has been in vogue 
in recent years, upon the morals of the country. I don’t 
see any bad effects to be charged up to the short skirt. 
I think the young men who grow up during such 
fashions, perhaps will be possessed of less sex curiosity 
than those who grew up in a period of long skirt 
fashions. Perhaps from a moral standpoint we might 
object to the frequent and marked changes in the length 
of the skirt, such as having skirts below the ankle one 
year and up to the knees the next year, etc. That is the 
only objection that could be urged, that I see, from a 
moral standpoint. 

But, you say, why should we be concerned about 
these things? We do have to be concerned about these 
things. We have to live with men in this world, and we 
have to take these things into account. A tragedy hap¬ 
pened in the life of one of my patients not long ago. 
She likes to flirt. She likes to see how far she can go 
with a man and then laugh at his discomfiture. But 
the other day she went too far. She got into a taxicab 
with a man to go out to dinner in one of the suburbs, 
but this man had the driver fixed, and a loaded gun in 
his pocket, and this was the time our professional flirt 
met disaster. She is heart broken now, has lost all 
faith in men, and thinks she would rather die than 
live; but it is her own fault. Somewhere in the Good 


THE PILLARS OF HEALTH 


57 


Book there is a verse, and it’s a true one, that says: 
“Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for whatsoever 
a man soweth that shall he also reap.” And of 
course, believing in woman’s rights, and equal rights 
for women, I think that is just as true of women as it 
is of men. 

IV. WATER DRINKING AND BATHING 

The fourth pillar of health we will put down as the 
use of water—internally and externally. The little cells 
that compose our body are, after all, marine animals; 
they all live and move and have their being under 
water, and the problem for us to solve is, shall they dis¬ 
port themselves in clean water, or in dirty and poison¬ 
ous liquid? You know there are a lot of people who 
are scrupulously careful about keeping the outside of 
their bodies clean, but they are careless about the inside. 
They bathe externally but they are filthy internally. 
Of course, some folks don’t bathe any too much. I 
have a friend who is fond of remarking that “Some 
people bathe, others use perfume.” 

We need about ten glasses of water a day in order 
to give our working machinery an internal bath. You 
can’t be healthy unless you perspire, and you can’t 
sweat unless you drink water abundantly. 

1. Substitutes for Water. The American people 
have formed the habit of drinking anything and every¬ 
thing except water; at least a great majority of them take 
alcohol when they can get it, tea and coffee, mineral 
water, soft drinks, coca cola, bromo seltzer, and what 
not. Now I take it for granted that you know that 
alcohol is not a desirable drink, from a health stand¬ 
point. I don’t know that many of you understand 
that tea and coffee are mild narcotics whose first effect 
seems to be that of a stimulant, that they are drugs, 
that we regard it as particularly unfortunate that 
women should become addicted to their excessive use, 
particularly tea. There is a condition that physicians 


58 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


have come to recognize as “tea drinker’s disorder,” 
a condition of mild nervousness accompanied by marked 
tremors. 

I doubt if there is one of you who would not be 
better off if you did not use tea and coffee regularly. If 
you were not addicted to these drugs, then, in a case 
of emergency, when you really needed a stimulant, 
strong coffee would serve admirably. As the years go 
by, you will have better health if you are not addicted 
to the use of these drugs. 

Now, with reference to the soft drinks. On the 
whole, they are comparatively harmless—except coca 
cola, which is a caffeine drink—a sort of iced coffee, and 
bromo seltzer which is also in the nature of a drug. 
Certainly we have nothing to say against lemonade and 
simple carbonated drinks. In fact, the fruit drinks are 
healthful and wholly harmless. Likewise, with refer¬ 
ence to cocoa and chocolate, we cannot put them in the 
same class with tea and coffee, as they contain but a small 
amount of the active principle which is comparable to 
caffeine. If you want a warm drink they are to be pre¬ 
ferred to tea and coffee. 

2. Drinking with Meals. I am frequently asked 
whether it is injurious to drink with meals. That all 
depends. There are three classes of people, when it 
comes to the question of drinking with meals; those with 
slow digestion, dilated stomachs, usually thirty-five or 
forty years of age—it would be better for these not to 
drink with their meals. The second class, usually 
younger people, with too much acid, rapid digestion, 
suffer from heart-burn, etc., they would be better off if 
they would sip water slowly throughout the meal. 
Their digestion often is improved by taking very cold 
water with meals. 

Then there is the other, the third class, the majority 
of us, who have good, normal digestion. It doesn’t make 
a bit of difference whether we drink with our meals or 
not, for the X-ray studies in recent years have shown 
us that in the case of the healthy stomach, the water 


THE PILLARS OF HEALTH 


59 


taken with meals does not mix up with the food and 
dilute the gastric juice, but it is dumped off to the other 
end of the stomach and quickly thrown out into the 
bowel, so that it in no way interferes with the process 
of digestion. 

3. Bathing. Bathing is simply an antidote for the 
wearing of clothes. If our bodies were exposed to the 
air and sunlight we wouldn’t need to bathe so much; but 
we wear clothes, resulting in the retention of the sweat, 
and this makes it necessary for us artificially to cleanse 
our skins. The majority of you will do well on a 
couple of good warm, cleansing, soapsuds baths a week. 
Some of you will enjoy taking tonic baths. I mean by 
that the morning cold sponge bath or the cold plunge in 
the tub. To those of you who are in good flesh, and 
have good circulation—who can take a cold bath in a 
warm room and not have cold chills chasing up and 
down your spine, or have a headache following—in such 
cases, the cold bath is an excellent tonic measure. But 
the majority do not have to punish yourselves this way 
—unless you are in need of moral discipline and do it 
as a mode of penance. Some of you with poor circula¬ 
tions would profit by taking cold baths for a year, as a 
remedial measure. 

The neutral bath, a bath taken at about 98° F., just 
before you go to bed, is a wonderful nerve quieter. It 
is one of the best things in the world to promote sleep. 
This form of bath is also a wonderful remedy for gen¬ 
eral nervousness, and when taken for such purposes the 
bath must feel neither warm nor chilly—just neutral. 

V. ELIMINATION OF POISONS 

One scientist said the human body was a laboratory 
I for the manufacture of poisons, and this is literally true. 
\ The activities of mind and body result in the produc¬ 
tion of many poisons, chemical substances which must 
f promptly be eliminated if we are to enjoy good health 
I and be efficient at our work. So we can very consist- 


60 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


ently call the elimination of poisons the fifth pillar in 
our temple of health. 

These poisons are eliminated in a number of ways, 
such as through the lungs, the skin, and by means of 
the kidneys and the bowels. So it becomes highly 
important that we know how to maintain the efficiency 
of the eliminative and sewage disposal systems of the 
body. 

1. The Lungs. Many of the food elements we 
consume are so completely burned up in the body that 
the end products are only water and smoke—carbon 
dioxid. Now, this smoke, or carbonic acid gas, is thrown 
out through the lungs and is given up in exchange for 
the oxygen we breathe in from the atmosphere. Thus 
our breathing becomes one of the channels for the elim¬ 
ination of poisons, while of course it accomplishes other 
valuable things in behalf of our health, as already con¬ 
sidered. 

2. The Kidneys. The kidneys are probably our 
most important safety valve, as regards the escape of 
poisons from the system. You should know that the 
urine is, in many ways, just a sample of the blood, minus 
the blood cells. Urine is produced by the kidneys fil¬ 
tering the poisonous substances out of the blood. The 
filter tubing of the kidneys, if uncoiled, would reach 
about fifteen miles; and we wear out our kidneys—we 
destroy this tubular filter—when we constantly over 
eat, or saturate our systems with poison, as in the case 
of the excessive use of alcohol, tobacco, tea, coffee, etc. 
When we wear the kidneys out, we have a condition 
called Bright’s disease, often accompanied also by high 
blood pressure. 

3. The Skin. You know the Good Book says that 
man should “earn his bread by the sweat of his face,” 
but we have got it into our heads that we should make 
a living without sweating. Now, you need a good sweat 
once or twice a week at least. Stop for a moment, and 
consider how important the skin is as a poison elimin¬ 
ator. In the first place, let me remind you that while 


THE PILLARS OF HEALTH 


61 


yon only have about seventeen square feet of skin, you 
have thirty-two thousand square feet of sweat gland 
openings on your skin. How can that be possible? 
This is the explanation. If you look at your skin with a 
magnifying glass, you will find it is not the smooth and 
beautiful thing that you fool yourself into believing it 
to be, it looks like a mountain range, all covered with 
little elevations, and many of these sweat glands open 
on the sides of these elevations, so that it makes it pos¬ 
sible to have the enormous area of thirty-two thousand 
square feet of sweat glands on seventeen square feet of 
skin. 

On some parts of the body there are twenty-five hun¬ 
dred little sweat pores to the square inch, and the sweat 
tubes in our skin, if laid end to end, would make a 
sewer ten miles long. 

It has been estimated that there are two million five 
hundred thousand sweat glands in the skin of the aver¬ 
age human being, and the total area of the openings of 
all these sweat glands, these little sewers of the human 
system, aggregates eleven thousand square feet. See 
what happens, then, when you fail to get your regular 
cleansing bath. See what an enormous sewerage dis¬ 
posal system you are allowing to clog up. Just as long 
as we wear clothes and interfere with the natural order 
of skin elimination, we will have to take hot baths as an 
antidote. 

4. The Bowels. When we come to the study of 
the bowels as a poison eliminator, we are dealing with 
what might be compared to the ash box of a furnace. If 
you are going to shovel coal into a furnace two or three 
times a day, you ought to shake down the ash box two or 
three times a day—that is if you want the fires to burn 
brightly. 

Ideally, if you eat three times a day, you should have 
three bowel movements a day, but we know, in the case 
of you business folks, that you will not take the time for 
three evacuations daily; and so we doctors advise you 
to have two, one in the morning and one in the evening. 


62 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


A little habit training will soon enable you to enjoy 
this luxury; because it is a luxury to keep the blood free 
from these poisons. For if you allow these poisonous 
substances to remain over time in the bowel, many times 
they will be reabsorbed into the blood, to give you 
headaches and other feelings of depression and lassitude. 
Of course, I know some of you have these headaches be¬ 
cause you are nervous. Not all headaches are due to 
auto-intoxication disturbances. 

Some of you have formed the habit of ignoring the 
call of Nature, and you are like the fellow who has an 
alarm clock going off at six o’clock in the morning. If 
he smothers it with a pillow a few times and goes back 
to sleep, it will be but a short time till he won’t hear it 
when it does ring. So it is with the delicate, nervous 
calls of Nature. When you have the call to evacuate the 
bowel and ignore it, it soon passes, and ere long you lose 
the ability to hear or recognize it, and that is one of the 
ways by which the tendency to chronic constipation is 
formed. 

Now, you can train yourself in a very few weeks to 
have two regular movements a day and thus add greatly 
to your health and efficiency. Sometimes the bowels 
will move immediately upon arising, before breakfast, 
but in many cases they move better about half to three- 
quarters of an hour after meals. 

Auto-intoxication is the name we apply to the dis¬ 
order that results from tardy bowel elimination, from 
chronic constipation, when these poisons are reabsorbed 
into the blood, to produce dark brown circles under the 
eyes, a dark brown taste in the mouth in the morning, 
and a general, all-around, good-for-nothing, rotten 
feeling. 

If you want to succeed in business, fight constipation. 
Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, and eat bran three 
times a day—if necessary. Walk, use your muscles. If 
you have no housework, or washing that will bend the 
trunk muscles, take setting up, or some other form of 
exercises. 


THE PILLARS OF HEALTH 


63 


Whatever you do, don’t fall into the cathartic or the 
enema habit. If you have to take something to encour¬ 
age the bowel action, take mineral oil, that is harmless. 
Enemas may be all right when you are coming down with 
a cold, or in some emergency, but don’t form the habit 
of using an enema to empty the bowel. Cathartics and 
enemas are both bad habits. It will help you, when you 
first get up in the morning to drink a glass of cold water, 
and oftentimes you can help yourselves at stool by us¬ 
ing a foot stool or low bench of some kind to elevate the 
feet, thus bringing yourself into old Mother Nature’s 
squatting position. 

Be regular about the time you go to stool, that is 
essential to good bowel elimination. And remember the 
list of foods that are laxative such as apples, oranges, 
prunes, figs, and don’t forget the bran. 

And last, but not least, shun the grouch. Cheerful¬ 
ness is an aid to elimination. ‘‘Blues” favor constipa¬ 
tion. A cheerful, happy frame of mind is a help in 
keeping up the nerve tone of the bowels, as well as all 
the other internal organs. 

VI. EXERCISE 

The sixth pillar in the temple of health is exercise, 
and we could truthfully say mental exercise as well as 
physical, for the mind must be used as well as the body 
in order to enjoy good health, and this is particularly 
true in the case of the business woman. You must have 
an active mind in a healthy body. You read a good deal 
in the advertising pages of the magazines these days 
about different systems and sets of exercises. No one 
is better than the other. All you need to do is to swing 
yourself around a little, bend your knees, and jump up 
and down, or roll around on the floor. Of course there 
is system in some of these exercises so that you use 
different sets of muscles—get exercises for arms, legs 
and trunk; what I mean is, don’t think there is some 
royal road to health through physical culture. A lot 


64 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


of it is just a fad. A lot of these physical culture 
hounds have big muscles because they inherited them, 
just like some others have big feet and big heads. They 
just naturally have big muscles, and they don’t have to 
work in a gymnasium to keep them that way. 

The self-resistive exercise, whereby your muscles re¬ 
sist each other, is an excellent exercise for a woman to 
take in her bedroom, when disrobed down to her under¬ 
clothing, in the evening before retiring and again in 
the morning before dressing. 

1. Walking. Undoubtedly walking is the best 
form of exercise for both men and women. Of course, 
in the case of women, you should put on sensible shoes 
before you walk. The shoes most of you wear are not 
fit to walk in. You want a shoe with a common sense 
last, not a pointed toe affair, but one that toes in a little, 
for you know, if we are normal and natural, we all are 
a bit pigeon toed. We men used to poke fun at the 
women for their high-heeled shoes and their tight cor¬ 
sets. Now, the wasp waist has gone, but the high heel 
is still with us. You have not made so much progress 
in reforming your footwear as you have some other 
things about your wearing apparel. Women still per¬ 
sist in trying to get a number six foot into a number 
three shoe. I don’t know why you should be so afraid 
to get a little bit of yourself spread out on the ground, 
unless it is the fear of contracting consumption. 

Learn how to walk comfortably. It is not necessary 
to stand up stiff like a poker when walking for exercise. 
They have even quit that in the army. You don’t have 
to be on dress parade. You can swing along at a good 
gait. It is also well to know how to sit and stand—to 
know proper posture. It is well to know how to sit in 
a chair without slumping, and thereby bringing about 
a weakness of the abdominal muscles. If you are going 
to lie down, lie down—you don’t always have to sit ly¬ 
ing down. 

2. Man a Working Machine. The study of human 
anatomy shows that men and women were built for work- 


THE PILLARS OF HEALTH 


65 


ing machines. They are really not made to sit down, 
they were made either to lie down and rest or stand np 
and work. And in this connection you should be re¬ 
minded that one reason why people have to engage in so 
much physical exercise, or other form of work, in order 
to be healthy, is the fact that they eat so much. I had 
some medical friends ask me recently how I did so much 
work and had such good health, when I didn’t take any 
more exercise than I do—for I only take a small amount 
of exercise. I told them it was because I did not eat so 
much as they did. I said to my friends: “If I ate as 
much as you do every day, in three square meals, I’d 
have to exercise more than you do to keep healthy.” I 
only eat a little bite in the morning and one square meal 
in the evening, and I don’t have to take so much daily 
exercise to work it off. 

But we need a little daily exercise and a good walk 
once a week or so, in addition to this moderate daily 
activity. 

If you are going to do brain work, just be a business 
woman and take the exercise your work demands, then 
look out for gluttony. A lot of people sit down at the 
table three times a day and stuff food into their stom¬ 
achs until the pain at the equator is greater than the 
pleasure at the north pole. 

It goes without saying that some agreeable form of 
exercise is better for your health than some physical 
drudgery. If your heart is in what you are doing you 
get more good out of it, the blood will circulate more 
freely and, on the whole, it will benefit you more. Try 
to find some physical fad that you can enjoy, because 
you will get better returns on a given amount of work. 

VII. REST AND SLEEP 

Sleep has been called “Nature’s sweet restorer.” 
Theoretically, we are supposed to be able to get along 
without it, as science teaches us that rest is the only 
thing we really need; but sleep seems to give the soul a 

5 


66 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


chance to play, in its dream life. The subfeonscious mind 
gets its recreation while we are unconscious in slumber. 

The theories as to the cause of sleep are many. It is 
supposed that our nerve cells wear out and let go their 
“hand holds” and thus the contact is broken in the 
brain, so that nerve currents are stopped in their circuit. 
Others think that poisons accumulate in the blood suffi¬ 
ciently during the day to anesthetize the brain and put 
us to sleep at night. And so the theories go on, one after 
another. The important thing for you, as a business 
woman, to know, is that sleep and rest are essential to 
the recuperation of bodily strength and the restoration 
of mental power. Practically considered, if we don’t get 
our sleep we are not fit for work the next day. 

1. Antidote for Work. Now, I want to make it 
clear to you that sleep is an antidote for work, but not 
for worry. You work all day, sleep all night, and get 
up rested; you worry all day, sleep all night, and get 
up tired. I want you to learn one thing, and that is to 
live on your victuals and not on your vitals. You buy 
your food and eat it and that is what you should live 
on—not your nerves. 

If you want to be bright, snappy and efficient in busi¬ 
ness, you must have regular periods of sleep and rest. 
You will not succeed if you are going to sit up till after 
twelve o’clock every night attending shows and after 
theatre parties. Sooner or later, such a life is going to 
break down your nervous reserve and you are going to 
fall down and fail at your game. 

2. Dreams. You all have dreams every night, and 
you dream all night long, but when you sleep soundly, 
you don’t know it. That is the only difference between 
the nights you think you dream and the nights you think 
you do not dream. But when you are dreaming your 
mind is taking a vacation. Your dream life is your sub¬ 
conscious play life. 

Dreams are of no importance unless you dream too 
much about your work. That means you need a vaca¬ 
tion. Sometimes you dream of being smothered, be- 


THE PILLARS OF HEALTH 


67 


cause you don’t have proper ventilation in the sleeping 
room. Don’t be afraid of “night air”; that’s the only 
kind of air there is after sundown. 

Don’t worry about the peculiar dreams you have at 
night that may be directly or indirectly of a sex nature 
—those dreams that are accompanied by thrills. They 
are perfectly normal and natural, particularly for un¬ 
married women, and don’t chide yourself the next day 
because you have been the victim of this sort of moral 
nightmare. On the whole, it should be rather welcomed 
as a sort of psychologic safety valve. 

Don’t worry about dreams coming true. Don’t be 
superstitious about dreams. Don’t be foolish enough to 
consult a dream book, a clairvoyant, a witch, or a wizard, 
to find out what your dreams mean. Go about your 
business. Let nature take her course. 

3. The Sleeping Room. If you cannot work out 
of doors, you can, to all intents and purposes, sleep out 
of doors. The old fashioned spare bedroom has de¬ 
parted, with its damp and musty odor. You spend about 
one-third of your life in bed, almost as much as you 
spend at work; for if our lives are well divided we spend 
about one-third at work, one-third at play—including 
eating and recreation, and one-third at rest. So, if you 
cannot work out of doors, you can, perforce, sleep out of 
doors. 

I don’t mean that any of you frail creatures should 
try to sleep out on a sleeping porch all winter and freeze 
to death trying to woo health. Don’t be an extremist; 
keep in the middle of the road; use common sense. 

You know, it is while you are asleep at night that 
the nerve centers recuperate their energy granules; 
actual little sand-like particles of matter that can be seen 
under the microscope. You use these up during the day 
and while you sleep at night they are restored. They are 
the things that give you pep for the next day’s work. 

4. Regular Vacations. Remember this, you can¬ 
not afford to do without vacations; and if you are of a 
nervous tendency, or over thirty years old, they are in- 


68 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


dispensable. Have a vacation once a year. Those of you 
who are not strong physically, or are weak nervously, 
take a vacation twice a year. Get away from your work. 
Do something entirely different from what you have 
been doing. It is the change you need, not just rest, 
though you may need rest if you are physically worn 
out. But it is usually some sort of nervous fatigue 
that we are looking for relief from, rather than physical 
tiredness. • 

One thing I want to warn you about, and that is do¬ 
ing too much work in the evening, after your day’s 
work. I never hear Dr. Lena Sadler talk to business 
women but she warns them against doing a man’s work 
all day and then going home at night and doing a 
woman’s work. I suppose you really enjoy some of the 
things you do, fooling around the house, or your rooms; 
but I think many professional and business women 
I have had under my care, have broken themselves down 
because they have gone to the office early in the morning 
and done a full day’s work, just like their male business 
associates; and then at night when the men played or 
rested they plunged into housecleaning, sewing, mend¬ 
ing, or, if they had nothing else to do, perhaps they 
washed their hair. 

This is where the married business woman makes a 
great mistake. She perhaps works all day with her hus¬ 
band, he comes home at night and rests and she goes to 
work. Now, ladies, that won’t do. If you are going to 
do a man’s work all day, you must enjoy a man’s rest 
and play in the evening. 


PART III 


THE BAROMETERS OF PEP—BUSI¬ 
NESS INDICATORS 


E VERY well-built machine that is made to run at 
high pressure is always provided with some sort 
of a pressure gauge, some sort of an indicator, that will 
let the engineer know how the mechanism is performing; 
and so, following our study of the seven personality 
traits which are so essential to business success, and our 
discussion of the seven pillars of the temple of health 
which are so necessary to business pep; it becomes us 
next to consider the seven business indicators, the com¬ 
mercial barometers w r hieh enable us to know how our 
business engine is performing, and whether or not our 
pressure is above safety limits or below the levels of 
business efficiency. 

I want to tell you how, through your own observa¬ 
tion and with a little cooperation on the part of your 
doctor, you can know whether you are wrecking your 
engine on the one hand, as the result of high pressure; 
or whether you are overly conservative and failing to 
fire up your boilers to a point of real business efficiency. 
And you will be surprised how simple most of these tests 
or observations are and how easy it will be for you to 
become thoroughly intelligent as to the way in which 
you are managing your business mechanism of mind and 
body. 


I. ANEMIA—IRON IN THE BLOOD 

Your blood contains two kinds of cells, the white and 
the red. The white cells we shall study presently; the 
red cells concern us more especially at this time. They 
are the oxygen carriers and the smoke removers. The 
red cells not only carry oxygen to the tissues, but they 
carry the carbonic acid gas back to the lungs for exhala- 
69 


70 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


tion. These little red cells are enabled to enact this double 
role by means of a peculiar chemical substance which 
they contain, consisting largely of iron, and from which 
they derive their red color. 

1. Iron in the Blood. If we prick the lobe of the 
ear with a needle and take a drop of your blood on a 
sheet of white paper, allow it to dry for a moment, and 
then compare it with a graded system of colors, we can 
estimate the percentage of iron present in the blood. If 
it stacks up with the general average, we call it 100 per 
cent., or if it is a little below, we say 95 per cent. In the 
case of most sedentary people over thirty years of age, 
we often find it down as low as 90 per cent. 

When your iron (hemoglobin) is below 80 per cent., 
the situation is becoming serious; and if it is as low as 
75 per cent, we say you have some form of anemia; you 
are really a sick woman. You readily can see, since your 
iron is the oxygen carrier of the body, that your fires of 
life will burn brightly only when the oxygen carrying 
power of the blood is not impaired. You cannot get a 
bright flame without oxygen, and you cannot have vivac¬ 
ity of personality and feel overrunning with pep when 
the iron in your blood is below par and the furnace of 
life is thereby deprived of a normal supply of oxygen. 

If you are short on iron (hemoglobin), you cannot 
expect to feel well. If your iron is below par your pep 
will be below par. You will feel more or less “all in”— 
as if you had a serious attack of spring fever. 

2. Iron Foods. If you are below par in iron, what 
are you going to do about it ? Well, there are a number 
of ways you can get at it. You know when folks have 
had a hemorrhage and are very sick with anemia, we 
take them to a hospital and do a blood transfusion. We 
find someone who has blood belonging to their group, 
and we draw one or two pints out of a vein and inject 
it into our sick patient. But in other less serious cases 
we take some form of vegetable iron, put it into a 
hypodermic syringe and inject it into the muscles. In 
other eases we give ordinary mineral iron in the form 


THE BAROMETERS OF PEP 


71 


of Bland’s pills, which are sometimes quite hard on the 
digestion, and constitute an uncertain, unreliable way of 
getting iron through the digestive system. If we have 
to get iron artificially, it is best to have it injected into 
the muscle with a hypodermic needle. 

These different methods of getting iron, valuable 
as they are in special cases, do not represent the way 
you business women are going to get it as a rule, unless 
you are on the border line of anemia. You are going 
to eat your iron —you are going to eat foods rich in iron. 
You will get your iron at the grocery store and the fruit 
store, not at the drug store. 

Many of our common foods contain more or less iron, 
but I want to give you a list of the foods that are espe¬ 
cially rich in iron. For instance, dates and raisins con¬ 
tain as much iron as beefsteak. But let me give you 
now, the list of foods rich in iron, naming them in the 
order of greatest iron content: spinach, especially fresh, 
green spinach; then yolk of eggs, asparagus, oranges, 
tomatoes, apples and milk. 

Remember, you are not going to feel well if your 
iron is much below 90 per cent., and the best and surest 
way of getting it up, if it is below normal, is to eat an 
abundance of these foods which are rich in iron. See 
to it that every day, and still better every meal, you 
get some one of these foods which contain a large amount 
of iron. And remember this solemn scientific fact: 
no iron no pep; less iron less pep ; more iron more pep. 

But don’t allow some advertising genius to lead you 
to the drug store to buy your iron in a bottle. Don’t 
waste your money on patent medicines. If, for any 
reason, you are forced to take your iron in drug store 
form, temporarily, then buy the simple and reliable 
Blaud’s pills, but don’t take Blaud’s pills or any other 
kind of pills unless a first class doctor has prescribed 
them for you. Don’t drug yourself. Remember the 
saying we doctors have among ourselves, viz., that a 
man is always sure to have a fool for a doctor when he 
prescribes for himself. 


72 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


II. ACIDEMIA—ACID IN THE URINE 

I have already intimated that the urine, chemically 
speaking, is a sample of the blood. And I have sug¬ 
gested that one of the theories of sleep maintains that 
we become unconscious because too many acid poisons 
accumulate in the blood as the result of the day’s mental 
and physical activities. Of one thing we are sure, if 
acid accumulates in the blood to that extent that we 
doctors call the condition acidemia , we can be sure you 
are sick; you are going to be drowsy, fatigued and in 
every way unfit to go out into the business world and 
carve out a successful career. 

Too much acid in the blood is going to make your 
brain feel as if it were full of cobwebs, and we find this 
out by testing the amount of acid present in a freshly 
voided specimen of urine. Remember, the body is a 
poison factory, and most of the poisons which it pro¬ 
duces are acid poisons. 

Now, without bothering with technical details, let me 
explain that we have certain simple tests which we can 
make in the laboratory, to determine the amount of acid 
present in the urine, and the test which is usually made 
yields results which we interpret in terms of degrees. 
That is, we say that the normal, average urine when we 
test it shows thirty degrees of acidity, and we take that 
as a standard—as an average for comparison. 

Some individuals who eat little or no meat may have 
an acidity test around 15° or 20°, or even as low as 10°. 
Others who over eat and under eliminate, who eat a large 
amount of meat, and who suffer from chronic constipa¬ 
tion, sometimes show a test of 50°, 75°, or 100° of acidity. 

It will help you, then, if you come to look upon the 
body as an acid factory, and the urine as a sample 
showing, at any time, exactly the degree of acid present 
in the blood stream. 

1. Acid Toxins. Every bit of thinking on the part 
of the brain cells and every contraction on the part of 
a muscle cell, produces acid in the body. The whole 


THE BAROMETERS OF PEP 


73 


process of nutrition is accompanied with acid production. 
But in addition to this we have still other explanations 
for the presence of acids in the body, and these various 
sorts of acids may be classified as follows: 

a. Metabolic acids. These are the acid poisons we 
have just been discussing, those which originate as the re¬ 
sult of the activities of the cells in the body. 

b. Food acids. It is a fact that certain foods, when 
burned up in the body are going to yield more acids as 
compared with other foods. All food assimilated is 
burned up in the body, turned into ashes, thus liberating 
its heat and energy, and these food ashes, or waste pro¬ 
ducts may be either alkaline or acid. Some foods are 
acid, some alkaline, and others, like sugar and fat, are 
neutral, being so completely burned up as to leave prac¬ 
tically no ash behind. 

c. Acid auto-toxins. These represent the acid sub¬ 
stances reabsorbed into the blood as a result of chronic 
constipation—tardy bowel elimination. Such substances 
as indican, which is sometimes found in the urine and 
which should not normally be present, are representative 
of this class of poisons. This substance should be elimin¬ 
ated by the bowel, and can be taken as a type of those 
substances which sometimes flood our blood, and as 
the result of which we are said to be suffering 
from auto-intoxication. 

d. Poisons. It is possible to introduce into the 
blood many poisons of an acid nature, and this we do 
when we habitually use tea, coffee, tobacco, alcohol, and 
numerous drugs such as aspirin. Practically all of these 
substances, when they are burned up in the body, leave 
behind a very strong and harmful acid ash. 

e. Microbic toxins. Practically all of the commonly 
recognized disease germs produce acid toxins, whether 
you have a bad cold or the “flu,” an abscessed tooth, 
chronic tonsilitis, or chronic appendicitis; the poisons 
which are continuously finding their way into the blood 
are acid in nature. Almost all of the simple diseases ac¬ 
companied by fever produce acid toxins. 


74 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


This story becomes interesting when you remember 
that an over-accumulation of acid in the blood stream, 
from whatever cause, tends to rob you of your pep. You 
feel worn out, tired out, “all in,” just as though you 
were getting over a hard sick spell. 

If you are going to do this thing scientifically, you 
ought to have the urine tested every day or two until 
you have made three or four tests, and thus be able to 
strike an average, because as you would naturally infer, 
the acidity of the urine will vary from day to day as 
you make variations in your diet, exercise, etc. 

Perhaps I ought to tell you, in this connection, that 
it is not the famous uric acid in the blood that makes this 
trouble, that gives you the tired feeling in the head— 
the dull feeling in the morning. Uric acid is really a 
rather harmless substance—merely an indicator of the 
presence of the more harmful acids which are the real 
mischief makers. 

2. Acid and Alkaline Foods. From what I have 
said about the sources of acidity in the blood, you have 
probably gathered the idea that our acidity can be in¬ 
creased or decreased by the foods we eat; and you are 
quite right, for the diet is the chief thing, after all, which 
determines our degree of acidity. 

I am very anxious that you should get this straight¬ 
ened out in your minds, for I not infrequently have 
patients come to me and tell me how they have quit eat¬ 
ing grapefruit, oranges, and other acid fruits because 
their doctor has told them they had too much acid in 
the blood. You no doubt will be surprised when I tell 
you that all the acid fruits, except plums and cranberries, 
are the best alkaline producing foods in the world. 

In other words, if the doctor tells you that you have 
too much acid in your blood, then you should go in for 
grapefruit, lemons and oranges, for that will be the 
quickest way to reduce your acidity. Without going into 
the details of chemistry, I will explain this apparent 
anomaly by saying that in the process of digestion, the 
acids of all the fruits, with the exception of the two men- 


THE BAROMETERS OF PEP 


75 


tioned, are converted into alkaline salts which tend to 
neutralize the acidity of the blood, and thereby increase 
its * ‘ alkali reserve . 5 ’ In this connection we will present, 
in parallel columns, an arrangement and classification of 
all our common food stuffs, so that you can see at a 
glance just which foods, when burned up in the system, 
will produce acid ashes and which will produce alkaline 
ashes. 

Now let us take a square look at this “deadly paral¬ 
lel/’ these important food facts which have so much to 
do with health and disease; with fatigue and lethargy on 
the one hand, and with vim and pep on the other. We 
will put on the left side all the foods which are acid in 
nature—that is, those which, when burned up in the 
body, yield an acid ash; and on the right we will put 
those which are alkaline; and as you study this food 
table you will be surprised to see how the majority of 
you are habitually over-eating the acid foods. 


FOODS WHICH TEND TO 
ACIDIFY THE BLOOD 

1. Animal Foods: All forms 
of flesh foods, fish, fowl, etc., 
including all kinds of meat 
soups, meat broths, beef tea, 
bouillon, etc. 

2. Eggs. 

3. Breadstuffs: All kinds of 
breads, whether made of wheat, 
rye, or corn; crackers, toast, 
griddle cakes, etc. 

4. Pastries: All sorts of 
pies and cakes (except fruit 
pies, and other desserts contain¬ 
ing milk or sour fruits). 

5. Cereals: Bice, oatmeal, 
and breakfast foods of all kinds, 
including the flaked and toasted 
breakfast foods. 

6. Miscellaneous: Peanuts, 
plums, prunes and cranberries. 
(Plums and cranberries come 
under this heading because of 
their benzoic acid, which the 
body cannot fully oxidize.) 


FOODS WHICH TEND TO 
ALKALINIZE THE 
BLOOD 

1. Dairy Products: Milk, 
ice cream, cottage cheese, cheese, 
buttermilk, etc. 

2. Soups: All forms of vege¬ 
table and fruit soups and broths. 

3. Fruit Juices: All the 
fresh fruit juices, except plum. 

4. Fresh Fruits: All fresh 
fruits—sweet and sour—(except 
plums and cranberries). 

5. Dried Fruits: All dried 
fruits (except prunes)—espe¬ 
cially figs. 

6. Vegetables: All kinds— 
especially beets, carrots, celery, 
and lettuce. 

7. The Legumes: Beans, 
peas, and lentils. 

8. Nuts: All the nuts be¬ 
long in this column—including 
almonds and chestnuts. 

9. Miscellaneous: Potatoes 
and bananas. 


76 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


3. The Efficiency Diet. Now, I think you are pre¬ 
pared to reform your dietetic practices in harmony with 
these facts, and you will begin, as the months go by, to 
get rid of some of your bothersome fatigue and to enjoy 
an habitual and higher degree of that feeling of fulsome 
well-being. 

Again let me emphasize that when you take large 
amounts of tea and coffee with your meals (and also in 
the case of those women who have fallen victims to 
cigaret smoking), as well as when you drink a cocktail 
or take a headache powder, you are putting almost 
pure acid products directly into the system, to be 
added to those which you naturally make on your own 
hook. 

You will notice that in our parallel classification of 
foods, nothing was said about butter and sugar. That is 
because these substances are quite completely burned up 
in the system. They are converted into the simple pro¬ 
ducts of smoke and water; there are no ashes left behind 
and so they are, in this sense, neutral, and therefore we 
do not have to take them into account. 

Further let me make it plain to you that I don’t mean 
to say anything against those foods which are acid ash 
producers. They are all good foods. We even have 
bread in that column, and bread we commonly regard 
as the staff of life. But let me warn you against eating 
too much bread. Many of you sedentary business women, 
whose work is mainly brain work, would do better if you 
ate less bread and more baked potatoes, for potatoes be¬ 
long to the alkaline ash producers. 

All of these acid foods are good if you don’t overeat 
of them. I don’t want you to quit eating them, I merely 
want you to eat less of them and more of the alkaline 
foods. 

I am sure you will be able to see the value of keeping 
your iron up to 95 or 100 per cent., and of keeping the 
acidity of your urine down to normal (twenty or thirty 
degrees.) In this way you will come to possess a blood 
stream that will bring joy and gladness to the untold mil- 


THE BAROMETERS OF PEP 


77 


lions and billions of tiny little cells which constitute the 
bodily commonwealth. 

These little beings—the protoplasmic cells—when 
they are thus bathed with nourishing, non-irritating 
blood, begin to feel like the proverbial million dollars, 
and so you begin to feel as if you were surcharged with 
P e P—y°u yourself begin to feel like a million dollars. 
But w r hen these untold billions of living cells are irri¬ 
tated, poisoned and smothered, when they are sick, doped, 
and suffocated by over acidity of the blood stream, how 
in the name of common sense can you expect to feel well ? 
Under such circumstances, you are bound yourself, in 
your own consciousness, to feel dopey, sick and suffo¬ 
cated. 

III. BLOOD PRESSURE—-THE GAUGE 
OF POWER 

Every steam engine is provided with gauges and 
safety valves for the indication and regulation of internal 
pressure. Now, blood pressure has a lot to do, not only 
with health, but with your feeling of well-being. I take 
it for granted that the subject of blood pressure is too 
well understood to need much description as to the meth¬ 
ods of taking it, etc. Let me merely remind you that 
blood pressure is, after all, in a measure, a gauge of 
business energy; it is the indicator of intensity that tells 
a whole lot about your stock of pep. 

1. What Is Blood Pressure? I have already told 
you that you have about a thousand miles of blood ves¬ 
sels. Connected with these is the human heart—a pump 
that beats incessantly, from the cradle to the grave. You 
women who are around twenty or twenty-five years of 
age should have a blood pressure of about 120 millimeters 
of mercury, and so we say that the average or normal 
blood pressure for adults is about 120. You can easily 
vary ten points either way and yet be wholly normal 
—or even fifteen points. As you get older, your blood 
pressure goes up one point for every two years increase 


78 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


in age, so that if your pressure is 120 when you are 
twenty it should be 135 when you are fifty—that would 
be considered normal blood pressure for that age. 

Now, a lot of things can influence blood pressure, and 
I can only briefly touch upon some of them; but what I 
want to call your attention to now is that you feel just 
grand—like a million dollars—when your blood pressure 
is high, provided it does not go too high; and that you 
feel thoroughly ‘ ‘ rotten , 9 9 and as limp as a dishrag when 
your blood pressure falls very far below normal. 

At my age I am very proud of a low blood pressure— 
it only runs around 115—but I would not be proud of it 
if I did not know that my heart was sound, on the one 
hand, and that I feel full of pep all the time, on the 
other; for ordinarily one would not feel as peppy as I do 
with a pressure as low as I have. I must belong to one 
of those families that run a low blood pressure, for I am 
beginning to find out that this tendency to either high or 
low blood pressure runs in certain families. I have such 
a great margin of safety as I grow older. I can work 
hard and live easy and know that at least I am in no im¬ 
mediate danger from any of those high-pressure diseases 
such as apoplexy, heart failure, etc.; and you know that 
heart failure is the greatest cause of death in America at 
the present time. Now we are not proud of a low pres¬ 
sure that follows a long period of high pressure; we call 
such a condition “secondary low pressure,” and it means 
that the heart has begun to fizzle out. It means trouble. 

2. Low Blood Pressure. Let us first dispose of the 
matter of low blood pressure. Low blood pressure is 
found in many conditions, but the one that I particularly 
want to talk about is nervous exhaustion —brain fag. 
These folks with tired-out nerves get out of bed in the 
morning, even after they have had a fairly good night’s 
rest, and actually have to force themselves to dress. The 
longer they sleep the worse they feel. They are not good 
for anything until nine or ten o’clock in the morning. 
By the time they are ready to get started it is time for 
lunch. Then they loaf around for an hour or two trying 


THE BAROMETERS OF PEP 


79 


to get up enough steam to do something; about the mid¬ 
dle of the afternoon their batteries pick up enough to let 
them get into action, but just about the time they are 
steamed up and ready for business the stores begin to 
close, the offices shut up, and the day’s work is over. They 
feel full of pep after dinner, but the day’s business is 
over. They are feeling fine as the evening draws on, but 
they have nothing to do except play bridge or go to the 
theatre. That is the tragedy of low pressure. 

What are we going to do about it ? We must treat the 
nervous system. We must overcome worry, fear, and 
other sorts of nervous foolishness. These neurotic folks 
must learn to get right out of bed in the morning and go 
to work regardless of feelings. These are the folks who 
need to live by an alarm clock. Steam up. If your doc¬ 
tor tells you there is nothing wrong with you, don’t let 
your nerves tyrannize over you. Get out and whip 
yourself into line, no matter how rotten you feel when 
you first wake up in the morning. Hustle out of bed, 
take some vigorous exercise, repeat over your favorite 
slogan a few times, and plunge into the fray. March up 
to the firing line; take your medicine; get busy. 

3. High Blood Pressure. But how about the high 
blood pressure? We see that when you have low pres¬ 
sure you feel “rotten,” and “all in,” but that there is 
no danger. You are perfectly safe; you can’t do your¬ 
self any harm; all you have to do is to drag yourself out 
and whip yourself into line. But what about the high 
blood pressure? Ah! That’s another story; that’s a 
horse of another color. Here’s where I must swing the 
red lantern. 

Some of you who made such a great record last year 
—did it on high blood pressure. You are becoming old 
before your time. Your pressure—say you are thirty or 
thirty-five—should be around 125, not over 130, most 
certainly not over 135, and yet some of you, if you 
were tested, or if you tried to get some new life insur¬ 
ance, would find your blood pressure to be 150, maybe 
160 or more. Now that spells trouble, trouble in the 


80 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


near future, but until the day it actually overtakes you, 
you feel fine. 

This high pressure, with all its attendant dangers, 
fills you with pep; you are surcharged with energy, you 
are a glutton for work. For just as low blood pressure 
is attended with no danger to you, but makes you feel 
“rotten;” so high pressure is attended with serious dan¬ 
ger, but gives you a “grand and glorious feeling.” 

4. The Annual Health Audit. Now you can begin 
to see why we want you to go to the doctor every year to 
have not only your blood and urine tested, but also to 
have your blood pressure taken. You cannot go on what 
your nerves tell you about how you are feeling. This 
whole blood pressure business is deceptive. You feel 
badly when there is no danger; you feel in fine shape 
when you are standing on the brink of ruin. 

You will ask me: are there no warning signals of 
approaching dangers in high blood pressure? And I 
answer, no—not until the matter is far advanced. After 
years and years, when it is too late for you to do any¬ 
thing to help yourself, you do begin to have dull head¬ 
aches, attacks of dizziness, maybe attacks of stomach 
trouble; you may stagger in your walk a little; you may 
begin to feel a little tired in place of your accustomed 
energetic feeling, but then if you are tested out your 
blood pressure will be around 200—or maybe above. 
Then it is practically too late to do anything. 

At a time when knowledge of your high pressure 
would be of any service to you or to your doctor, that is 
the time you cannot get it by your own feelings and 
sensations. You have to get it by testing with the blood 
pressure machine and that ought to be done once a year 
at least for every woman who is over twenty-five years 
of age. 

So we see there is such a thing as “false pep”—pep 
that you get by mortgaging your future life—that is 
the high blood pressure pep. It works great as long as 
it lasts—you have a great run for your money, but you 
go up like a sky rocket and come down with a thud. 


THE BAROMETERS OF PEP 


81 


Yon all know enough to go to your dentist once a 
year to have your teeth examined; but you have not 
been educated to go to your doctor once a year to have 
your blood, urine, and blood pressure checked up. We 
are never going to cut down this awful, premature death 
rate in this country from old age diseases, until we teach 
you to have annual health audits. 

We take better care of our machines and our business 
than we do ourselves. Just think of it: every year bank¬ 
ers, lawyers, doctors, business men and women, salesmen 
and what not, almost a hundred thousand dying like dogs 
around the age of forty years, of old age diseases, dis¬ 
eases which they should not die of until they are sixty, 
seventy, or eighty years of age. I refer to such diseases 
as kidney trouble, heart failure, arterio-sclerosis, etc. 

During the past thirty years the mortality from these 
old age diseases has nearly doubled in the United States, 
and it should be remembered that these premature break¬ 
downs are not due entirely to over work—they are more 
largely the result of over worry and chronic poisoning— 
not merely the poisons found in our water and food, but 
more particularly the poisons which we take into our 
bodies unnecessarily with our food, in the way of condi¬ 
ments, in alcohol and tobacco, as well as the over develop¬ 
ment and imperfect elimination of the poisons which we 
naturally make within our own bodies: and, I should fur¬ 
ther add, that the chief cause of premature softening of 
the brain and hardening of the arteries is syphilis. 

But don’t forget that high blood pressure and the old 
age diseases are largely symptomless. You never know 
what is creeping upon you if you depend on your own 
feelings, for you can be standing on the brink of the 
grave and at the same time feel like 11 a million dollars. ’ ’ 

IV. SKIN ELASTICITY—THYROID 
ACTIVITY 

In our study of personality I told you some things 
about the ductless glands and their influence in deter- 

6 


82 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


mining temperament. And I come back to this subject 
because I want to tell you about a very interesting and 
simple test which you can all make upon yourselves and 
your friends, for the purpose of finding out whether your 
pep glands are working well. 

You may be surprised when I tell you that the elas¬ 
ticity of your skin is one of the most reliable pep barom¬ 
eters—one of the most simple and most dependable of 
all signs which may be used as an indicator of your en¬ 
ergy pressure; as a barometer of your immediate and 
actual business capacity. 

1. The Pep Gland. The thyroid is really the pep 
gland. This little ductless gland which sits astride your 
windpipe is, after all, the regulator of personal energy. 

The thyroid is the mother of urge and the wellspring 
of ambition. It is, in the case of the average American 
business man or woman, the chairman of the board of 
ductless glands, or chemical directors. The “internal 
secretions” of these “ductless glands” are influential 
both in determining personality and regulating the exhi¬ 
bition of pep. 

You should remember this important fact: if you are 
deficient in pep because your thyroid gland is deficient 
in its action, you are going to be forced to find some way 
to adjust yourself to that situation; but I warn you it is 
a mighty dangerous habit to take thyroid extract for the 
purpose of either reducing your weight, or of so stimu¬ 
lating yourself as to make you feel more peppy. We doc¬ 
tors are mighty skittish about using these powerful sub¬ 
stances from the ductless glands of lower animals. They 
are all right in their place, but I warn you against their 
self-administration. 

To illustrate the great influence of the thyroid gland 
in controlling development and determining pep, I only 
need to tell you the story of a little animal that lives in 
the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. If you feed this little 
fellow on thyroid he gets so much pep and develops so 
much ambition that he gets right out of the water and 
becomes a land animal, and begins to breathe through a 


THE BAROMETERS OF PEP 


83 


rudimentary pair of lungs, instead of through his gills. 
This has led some biologists to regard the thyroid gland 
as the regulator, governor, and dictator of evolution. 
One thing we can be sure of is that it is the regulator, 
governor and dictator of all that pertains to exceptional 
and speedy success in the business world. 

The thyroid is the gland that enables you to put 
things over quickly and in a big way. It is the gland that 
determines the rate and degree with which energy is 
formed within the body and utilized by the mind. The 
thyroid dominant man or woman is a natural born pep 
machine. 

If your thyroid is a little over active, you just naturally 
feel peppy because this excess of thyroid secretion in¬ 
creases the rate at which energy is liberated in your body. 
On the other hand, if you are sub-thyroid, you will find 
it well-nigh impossible to whip yourself up into an exhi¬ 
bition of energy; you are just naturally deficient in that 
thing which we call ‘* get up and go. ’ ’ 

If you are super-thyroid you will have to watch your 
step. There is great danger of your overdoing, breaking 
down, burning out, or blowing up. 

2. The Skin Test. Now, I am going to give you a 
very simple little test of pep, or thyroid activity. The 
elasticity of the skin indicates the degree of thyroid 
activity. By this simple test I can at once determine 
whether you have an up-to-date, wide-awake, fully- 
functioning thyroid gland; or whether you have one be¬ 
hind the times, one that is an old fogey and more or less 
down and out. 

This is the way you make the test. Take your right 
hand and pick up the skin on the back of your left hand, 
between your right thumb and forefinger. Hold the skin 
up in this ridge for a few seconds and then let go quickly. 
Now observe what happens. If this little fold of skin 
which you have pinched up and stretched away from the 
back of your hand returns instantly to its normal posi¬ 
tion—if it shows that it is highly elastic and the rebound 
is exceedingly quick, that means that you have a normally 


84 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


active, or possibly an over-active thyroid gland. On the 
other hand, if this fold of skin which you have picked up 
returns slowly, sluggishly, and exhibits little or no elas¬ 
ticity, it means that you are sub-thyroid, that your 
thyroid gland is under-functioning—producing too little 
secretion. 

In the case of those women who have goiter of a cer¬ 
tain type (exophthalmic goiter) this pinched up fold of 
skin will always rebound quickly because they have an 
over-active thyroid; while in the case of many obese 
persons with sluggish temperament and phlegmatic dis¬ 
position, this fold of skin will be found to rebound slowly, 
because they are suffering from sub-thyroid activity— 
too little thyroid secretion. 

I have already explained to you that the thyroid is 
presumably the dominant gland in the average highly 
successful American business man or woman: though 
there are plenty of good types of business men and 
women who do not have a dominant thyroid gland. There 
is plenty of opportunity for you to be a success, even if 
you do not have a high class, highly active thyroid gland. 

Now, you can all practice this test on yourself and 
your friends, and while it is not an infallible barometer 
of business ability, it is a very reliable and very illumin¬ 
ating test, one which we physicians employ regularly in 
our study of the ductless gland status of our patients. 
There is only one more reliable test which could be made, 
and that is the so-called metabolism test which is one of 
considerable technicality, whereas this test is very simple, 
quickly made, highly practical, and you can all make it 
upon yourselves. 

Just remember—the quicker your skin jumps back 
when you pinch it up on the back of your hand, the 
quicker you will be able to go out and succeed in the 
business world, the sooner you will be able to get along 
in the game. But, as I have intimated, don’t be discour¬ 
aged, even if your skin seems to have little India rubber 
in it, because the thyroid gland is not the only active 
and influential factor connected with business ability. 


THE BAROMETERS OF PEP 


85 


But it will certainly prove true that the more slowly 
your skin jumps hack the more plodding 1 you will have to 
endure, the more pains you will have to take with your 
job, and the more steadily you will have to keep at it, 
for you will not he able to put some things over as 
quickly as some of your friends. You will be able to 
carry on, perhaps not in the same brilliant manner that 
some of your competitors do (and you will get there in 
the end just the same if you stick to the game), but you 
will have to fight harder and you will have to give your¬ 
self more time to attain success. 

3. The Drive and Check Systems. The biologists 
tell us that our ductless glands are roughly divided into 
two systems—the drive and check systems. Some think 
the thyroid is at the head of the drive system, and the 
adrenal glands at the head of the check system. So that 
the secretion of the adrenals becomes a valuable factor in 
maintaining business equilibrium. So you see, if your 
skin is not elastic, you can still be a successful business 
woman, but you will have to cultivate other elements of 
personality. You will not succeed just because of in¬ 
herent cleverness, dash, and brilliancy. You will have 
to look into the other and more steady elements of pep. 
You are not going to be a natural born success, but you 
can make up for this by education and training. 

In the case of some of you whose hair is beginning 
to turn gray, your skin naturally rebounds more slowly. 
Old age is always accompanied by slowing down of the 
thyroid activity and hence, by degrees, of skin elasticity, 
so that this test is not of the same practical value when 
applied to men and women over forty or fifty years of 
age that it is when applied to those of twenty or thirty 
years. The older you are, the less the significance that 
should be attached to the skin test. 

4. Initiation of Conduct. Perhaps I ought to ex¬ 
plain that conduct is initiated and regulated by the 
ductless gland system. Under certain conditions an in¬ 
crease or decrease of ductless gland secretions in the 
blood serves to cause you to experience a restless, dissatis- 


86 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


tied, or discontented feeling of some sort, which in turn 
leads you to initiate some sort of action or conduct which 
will serve to correct this disturbance of internal secre¬ 
tions, thereby restoring the chemical balance in your 
blood, and indirectly relieving you of your feeling of 
tension, unhappiness, or discontent, and in its place giv¬ 
ing you a feeling of satisfaction, contentment and well¬ 
being. 

And this explains why some business women or sales¬ 
men are so unhappy until they have gone out and secured 
an order or put over a business proposition, and then as 
a result of this sort of activity they have in some way 
brought about a restoration of the nervous and chemical 
balances of the body. They have restored their disturbed 
equilibrium, and are possessed, mind, soul and body, with 
a ‘ ‘ grand and glorious feeling. ’ ’ 

V. TEMPER EXPLOSIONS AND THE 
SENSE OF HUMOR 

One of the highly important and valuable barometers 
of pep, or indicators of business ability, is the question of 
emotional control. Temper explosions are often due to 
the fact that a highly temperamental individual is too 
intolerant of other folks. In other cases they are due 
to sheer selfishness, pure 4 ‘ cussedness, ’ ’ and in still other 
cases to a lack of humor. You are not going to get very 
far along in the business world and keep your good 
health—preserve your nervous equilibrium—unless you 
have a good sense of humor. 

Study jokes, peddle jokes, collect jokes, tell stories, 
keep on the sunny side of the road, don’t take yourself 
so seriously; nobody else does, why should you ? 

1. Brain Storms. These periodic explosions of 
temper are nothing more or less than embryonic brain 
storms—emotional sprees. A woman who is going to give 
way to her hysterical tendencies is going to be tremen¬ 
dously handicapped as she goes out into the business 
world. If you are hysterical, make a study of yourself 


THE BAROMETERS OF PEP 


87 


and get it under control. Don’t let it tyrannize over 
you. Learn how to discount your sensations, to ignore 
your feelings. Don’t allow your temperamental tenden¬ 
cies to rule, wreck and ruin you. 

Look out for these periods of alternate exaltation and 
depression; don’t be up in the clouds one day and down 
in the depths the next. Watch your step; regulate your 
feelings and control your emotions. 

2. Periodic Depression. I want to have a very 
frank word with you about periodic depression, both 
physical and mental. All the world of nature seems to 
run in cycles. The moon gets full every twenty-eight 
days; men have certain periods and cycles in their sex 
life, and so do women. The business woman is just like 
every other normal woman. Every twenty-eight days 
there is going to arrive a period in her life, and many 
women have become semi-invalids because of this fact. 
Now, if there is something wrong with these periods look 
into the matter, have expert medical counsel, and I assure 
you that nineteen times out of twenty it can be quickly 
removed and you can become thoroughly normal as re¬ 
gards your monthly periods. 

Now, if a careful study of your periodic problem 
shows that it is purely your nervous system, that you 
have simply formed the habit of being sick and going 
to bed once a month, then you must improve your morale. 
You must take yourself in hand and pull yourself out of 
this predicament. 

As a physician, I want to assure you that these 
monthly periods should in no wise prove a handicap to 
you in the commercial world. You ought to go right out 
and succeed just as well as the men, as far as this is 
concerned. There are not many exceptions to this state¬ 
ment, provided you have fairly good general health. I 
am talking to well women, real, live-wire, go-getters. I 
am not supposed to be talking to sick folks and invalids. 

3. Fear and Anxiety. Many a business woman has 
courted defeat by fear and met her final Waterloo 
through anxiety. Fear, doubt, and indecision constitute 


88 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


the dry rot of the business world. Over-anxiety is what 
breaks down many a business woman—not over work. 

If you are afraid to tackle a thing—if a proposition 
has “got your goat,” to use slang, then you are licked 
before you start. You have met defeat before you begin. 

You don’t have to be fool-hardy in order to overcome 
fear. Caution is indispensable to business success, but 
fear is the mother of business paralysis. And remember 
this —Faith is the only known cure for Fear. It doesn’t 
make any difference whether it is acute fear—stage 
fright—inability to tackle a proposition bare-handed and 
with energy; or whether it is chronic fear, just common, 
every-day, old-fashioned worry. Fear may manifest it¬ 
self in one case by nervous tension, and in another by 
self-consciousness and physical nervousness. 

And then there is another form of fear which we com¬ 
monly call superstition , which we ordinarily laugh at, but 
many of us have it in some form. There are numerous 
sane, sensible business women who don’t like to sit down 
at a table with thirteen, who don’t like to initiate big 
things on Friday the 13th; yet they will laugh at people 
who think somebody is going to die because they break 
a looking glass, or ridicule the individual who is afraid 
to walk under a ladder or who has a fit because she meets 
a black cat coming down the street. 

This thing is all nonsense—nothing more nor less than 
superstition. Think of being afraid of the number thir¬ 
teen, when the American flag has thirteen stripes on it, 
and it’s the luckiest banner that ever floated over a free 
people. 

I well remember, when I was a little fellow, growing 
up down in Indiana, wearing that bag of asafoetida and 
sulphur tied around my neck every spring to keep off 
diseases, and it would surely work if the disease bugs 
could smell. But that was simply a relic of the days 
when our ancestors wore charms to drive off devils, be¬ 
cause they thought it was the devils that made them sick. 

4. Peevishness. I knew a business woman who 
was well endowed by nature, and fully competent to go 


THE BAROMETERS OF PEP 


89 


out and succeed, but she failed. Why? She was a 
spoiled child. She was the only child in her home, and 
her parents spoiled her hopelessly before she was 
fourteen years of age. She was constantly getting her 
feelings hurt, getting mad, getting peeved, and what 
not. The business world has no welcome, no place, 
for a grown-up baby, for spoiled children, or peevish 
kids. 

And a lot of this peevishness is nonsense; is nothing 
more or less than simon-pure selfishness. I had a patient 
in my office the other day, a life-long sufferer from hys¬ 
teria and nerves, and as she was leaving she said, “Yes, 
Doctor, I know that I am highly sensitive.’’ I said, “Yes, 
Madame, I know you are highly selfish.” She said, “I 
said sensitive,” and I replied, “Well, I said selfish and 
I mean it.” She got mad and left the office in a huff, 
but came back in ten days penitent, apologized, and said 
that she was just beginning to awaken to the fact that 
she was a thoroughly selfish woman. 

Now, what are you going to do about it? There’s 
just one grand prescription for all these things, and 
that is humor, humor, and more humor. Take yourself 
less seriously; take yourself as more or less of a joke, 
and enjoy the joke along with your associates and fellow 
workers. And how it will improve your health, add to 
your happiness, and enhance your efficiency if you can 
only become one of those pleasant, cheerful, smiling, half- 
humorous sort of individuals that everybody likes, and 
who have a grand time going through life, and who are 
usually able to achieve more than their share of material 
success and prosperity. 

VI. VITAL CAPACITY—LUNG CAPACITY 

We have said a good deal about the human furnace 
and about keeping the fires burning brightly and main¬ 
taining the draft. You know we get the smoke out of 
our systems through our lungs. I have discussed with 
you, under the seven pillars of health, the importance 


90 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


of deep breathing, fresh air, etc. Now I want to tell you 
about vital capacity —lung capacity. 

1. Good Chests. You are supposed to have a good 
chest if you are in good health and if you are a normal 
breather. Even life insurance companies are interested 
in your chest measurements. You are not supposed to 
be in good physical form if you have a measure around 
your waist that is larger than around your chest. It 
means you are a shallow breather on the one hand, or an 
over eater on the other. 

And remember this: there is no physiologic reason, 
that I know of, why women should breathe any differently 
than men. If you are dressed properly, if you are not 
laced up in a tight corset, and if you have not learned 
bad habits of breathing, you ought to breathe just as 
fully as a man does. 

Of course you know how lung capacity is tested. You 
breathe into an apparatus that measures the number of 
cubic inches you are able to exhale after you have filled 
your lungs to capacity. We also have machines for 
measuring the strength of the lungs or the strength of 
the diaphragm. 

Now, the lung capacity is supposed to be of consid¬ 
erable value when it comes to estimating one’s vital 
capacity, that is, one’s general capacity for health 
and ability to resist disease. I am not disposed to 
attach so much importance to it as I do to some 
other things we are discussing, though I do recog¬ 
nize that it is a valuable test and a useful bit of 
information, and since it is easy to secure, it becomes one 
of those simple and practical things which are entitled 
to be looked upon as barometers of business potentiality. 

2. Vital Capacity Standards. The standards for 
lung capacity vary according to sex and height. For 
instance, the lung capacity for a man five feet seven 
inches tall is usually given as about 225 cubic inches; 
while a woman five feet six inches tall is expected to have 
only about 150 cubic inches lung capacity. You will be 
interested in knowing that women range, according to 


THE BAROMETERS OF PEP 


91 


their height, from 100 cubic inches to about 200 cubic 
inches lung capacity. 

The value of this is not merely that it pertains wholly 
to the lungs, although good chest capacity certainly is 
of value in warding off tuberculosis and may be of some 
value even in the prevention of pneumonia. Sometimes 
the breathing capacity is interfered with, not only by 
wrong habits of breathing, but by obstructions in the 
nose and throat, such as adenoids, polyps, enlarged ton¬ 
sils, etc. Certainly every business woman should have 
her breathing apparatus, her whole respiratory mechan¬ 
ism, in good trim, well developed, and fully functioning. 

Personally, I do not altogether agree with the tables 
that are prepared for reference in gymnasiums, regard¬ 
ing lung capacity for women. I think a woman ought to 
have almost as great a lung capacity as a man. I think 
she makes a poor showing because she is, as a rule, so 
poorly developed physically. I think that a woman five 
feet six inches tall, instead of having a lung capacity 
of only 150 cubic inches, should reach nearer 200 cubic 
inches, in comparison with the lung capacity of 225 for 
a man five feet seven inches tall. 

VII. RESISTANCE TO DISEASE 

If we are in good health, if our pep pressure is at 
the right level, we are supposed to have a certain in¬ 
herent power to ward off disease—to dodge sickness. 
But in spite of all we can do, in spite of good heredity, 
good hygiene and good sanitation, we find that our 
mechanism is subject to numerous and repeated minor 
breakdowns. ¥e are all more or less subject to certain 
minor complaints which overtake us every now and then, 
and interfere with the even tenor of our business 
careers. 

I think it was the late Bob Ingersoll who said that if 
he were making this world he would have made health 
contagious instead of disease. But he was just exposing 
his ignorance, for that is just what the Almighty did. 


92 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


Health is much more contagious than disease. You get 
health out of every thought you think and from 
every muscular contraction, but you have to cultivate 
disease. Disease microbes are not ordinarily attracted 
to a healthy individual, though of course that does not 
always hold good in the case of severe epidemics like 
influenza. 

I have a friend who, for thirty years, has been try¬ 
ing three times a day to get dyspepsia, and he hasn’t 
got it yet. He still has good digestion. 

When I say that man is mightier than the microbe, 
I mean a normal, healthy individual, under ordinary 
circumstances. In this connection, let me call your atten¬ 
tion to the fact that moss does not grow on a healthy tree, 
it only grows on the shady side of a dead or dying tree. 
I freely admit that most of our ability to resist disease 
—to live healthy lives in the midst of a host of un¬ 
friendly microbes—is due to heredity. Heredity is, after 
all, the important thing in good health, long life, and 
disease resistance. 

1. Frequent Colds. Some folks seem to take cold 
just as easily and naturally as water runs down hill, 
but as a rule there is an explanation for it. I will admit 
I don’t know just what to do for those of us who have 
an ordinary cold for a week or ten days once a year. I 
have never been able to find any way to avoid this annual 
visitation, though I have, in recent years, come to believe 
in the value of taking a hypodermic injection of mixed 
vaccines when you first come down with a cold: that is, 
provided you can get it within the first twenty-four 
hours. It will often so abort the attack that you will be 
all over it in three days, without letting it run a week or 
two. 

If you are a victim of repeated colds, or chronic 
colds, have your nose and throat thoroughly looked into. 
Get rid of adenoids, tonsils, and anything else that is ab¬ 
normal in your breathing mechanism. Then see that 
your bowels move thoroughly. Don’t overeat, dress 
properly, get a proper amount of moisture in the air of 


THE BAROMETERS OF PEP 


93 


your working rooms, have plenty of fresh air at night, 
keep your skin healthy and active by plenty of warm, 
cleansing baths and tonic cold baths, and you will get 
over your colds, unless you have a chronic sinus infec¬ 
tion and carry the “bugs” the year around in your 
head. I don’t know of any royal road to curing colds, 
I don’t have any infallible remedy, and space forbids 
going farther into the details of their treatment. 

2. Headaches. Women are probably upset in their 
business careers by headaches more than by any other 
single thing. I understand how some of you may have 
headaches in connection with your monthly periods, and 
I have already dealt with them. If you will keep your 
lower extremities thoroughly warm during the winter 
season, and at such times, you may prevent or greatly 
relieve the accompanying headache. 

Some of you are victims of periodic sick headache 
(migraine). I wish I knew a cure for this form of head¬ 
ache, but I do not. The only cure I know is to wait on 
old Mother Nature, for about one-third of you, when you 
reach the menopause—change of life—will automatically 
get over your sick headaches. For the rest of you, I can 
only advise you to look into those things which precipi¬ 
tate these headaches, take care of your bowels and 
nerves, so as to prevent poisoning on the one hand, 
and stress and strain on the other. And thus you will 
be able, although you cannot cure yourselves, greatly to 
lessen the frequency and severity of these distressing 
attacks. 

At any rate, whether you are successful or not in 
curing your headaches, be a woman. Don’t permit your¬ 
self to develop into a chronic whiner. Men don’t like 
’em. Be brave, and make the best of your troubles and 
afflictions. 

3. The White Blood Cells. You will perhaps re¬ 
member, when they taught you about the blood cells in 
the physiology class at school, they told you mostly about 
the red cells, that carry the oxygen from the lungs to the 
tissues and how they carry the smoke, the carbon dioxid, 


94 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


back to the lungs where it is thrown out of the body 
when you exhale. 

But they didn’t tell you much about the white cells, 
those sturdy little policemen who make up the “stand¬ 
ing army of the interior.” These are the little fellows 
that go out and eat up the disease germs when they gain 
an entrance to the body, and their work is just as neces¬ 
sary to our health as that of the red cells. You should 
understand how to encourage them in their work, espe¬ 
cially at such times as you may be coming down with a 
cold, or some form of sickness or infection. It is a great 
mistake at such times, to follow the old practice of taking 
whiskey and quinine, for of all the substances known 
none are more able, quickly and completely, to paralyze 
the white blood cells in their efforts to capture and de¬ 
stroy the disease microbes than whiskey and quinine, 
even when taken singly, let alone when you use them 
in this double-barreled fashion. 

When you are coming down with a cold, nowadays, 
instead of giving you whiskey and quinine we give you 
soda and lemonade. You take a glass of ordinary lemon¬ 
ade and stir into it a level teaspoonful of common baking 
soda, and drink it down while it effervesces. In this way 
we are giving you a remedy that helps the white cells 
in their work of resisting infection, and it also helps to 
overcome the acidity of your blood which is usually 
greatly increased at such times. 

Your red blood cells are very small. It takes three 
thousand of them, in a row side by side, to equal one inch. 
You are each supposed to have about thirty thousand 
million red cells, but you only have about sixty million 
white cells. Now these white cells lead a very precarious 
existence; their calling is a hazardous one, and their 
average length of life is less than twenty-four hours. 
And all this means that, taking the red and white cells 
together, we have to have created within our bodies every 
twenty-four hours about seven hundred million blood 
cells: that is, thirty million an hour, a half million a 
minute, or about eight thousand every time the clock 
ticks. 


THE BAROMETERS OF PEP 


95 


This finishes our discussion of the seven traits of per¬ 
sonality, the seven pillars of health, and the seven barom¬ 
eters of pep, or the business indicators of vital resistance; 
and we have thus prepared the way for the next and 
closing section, which has to do with the seven different 
ways of eliminating emotion—self-expression. 


PAET IV 


SAFETY VALVES FOR PEP—EMO¬ 
TIONAL ELIMINATION 


W E have discussed the personality engine—the psy¬ 
chology of business; we have considered the pillars 
of health—the energy of business; and we have studied 
the barometers of pep—the indicators of business; and 
we come now to the study of the seven safety valves for 
pep—those things having to do with self-expression and 
emotional elimination. We are now about to study the 
technique of the prevention of temperamental explo¬ 
sions, physical breakdowns, and nervous blow-ups. 

No sane mechanic would build a high pressure en¬ 
gine without providing adequate safety valves. The 
higher the pressure under which you are going to work, 
the more certainly must you see to it that your safety 
valves are in good working condition. High pressure 
jeopardizes any machine that does not possess good de¬ 
vices for the automatic release of excess pressure. 

I want to discuss with you the best methods of nerve 
control; to teach you the secret of self-mastery. 

I want to help you in the task of delivering yourself 
from acute fear, or stage fright, on the one hand; and 
from chronic fear, or worry, on the other. I want to 
help you to be rid of fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and 
indecision—your pent-up feelings and nervous tension. 

I want to encourage you to work for deliverance 
from all your fidgety habits and all your energy-leaks— 
to help you find deliverance from hoodoos and super¬ 
stition. 

The Nature of Emotions. You know when we expe¬ 
rience a sensation, if we get our attention focused on it, 
we can easily build it up into a feeling ; and our feelings, 
when they develop in the presence of some unusual situa¬ 
tion, and when this whole experience is accompanied by 
changes in the blood pressure in some of the internal 

96 


SAFETY VALVES FOR PEP 


97 


organs—well, then we have an emotion: and when our 
emotions become crystallized and associated with our 
beliefs we may have conviction: and when conviction be¬ 
comes connected up with conscience we have devotion. 
And all these things taken together: feelings plus emotion 
plus conviction plus devotion—then we have patriotism. 

Now you can have patriotism for a cause, a religion, 
a race, a nation, or for a calling. If your feelings, 
emotions, convictions and devotion are dedicated to 
your business, then you can be a patriotic business 
woman. 

If our study of personality had to do mainly with 
the mental elements of success, and our study of the 
pillars of health had to do with the physical elements of 
success, and our study of the barometers of pep pertained 
to precautionary elements: then we might consistently 
say that our study of emotional elimination had to do 
with the ethical and moral elements of business pros¬ 
perity. 

Don’t forget, you are not going to succeed as a woman 
in business unless you have business power and person¬ 
ality, and this means self-control—self-mastery. You 
must master the technique of the regulation of your 
emotions. Remember what the impatient mother told 
her nervous daughter one Sunday afternoon: after her 
patience was exhausted she said, “Maggie, Maggie, for 
goodness sake, can’t you get your mind off your 
thoughts ? ’ ’ 

Women have a special reputation for being emotional. 
Don’t try to suppress and change your emotions, but as 
you go out into the business world—just control them. 
Be womanly in your emotional expression, not child-like 
and babyish. 

All women need to be warned against falling victims 
to their emotions and sentiments and being led to make 
fools of themselves after the fashion of the girl who mar¬ 
ries some useless renegade to save him. If you can’t save 
a man before you marry him, take it from me you’ll 
neither reform him nor save him afterward. 


7 


98 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


Let us now turn our attention to the study of the 
seven safety valves for pep. 

I. FEMININITY—LOVE OF YOUR SEX- 
SEX PATRIOTISM 

The business woman is an innovation in the modern 
world. You have not arrived in large numbers as yet, 
and what a beautiful thing it would be if we could see 
more loyalty on the part of women to other women, loy¬ 
alty to your own sex. You need one another. You need 
the financial and moral support of each other. And yet 
how many times we see women in business, or in a pro¬ 
fession, pass by able members of their own sex to extend 
their patronage—give their business—to “mere men.” 
I am not making an appeal for sex consciousness, but I 
do believe, when all things are equal, that women ought 
to manifest a special interest in the welfare, success, and 
advancement of other women. If the woman is not able 
and efficient, if her offerings are not up to the market 
standard, of course, I don’t blame you if you turn your 
business to the men; but wherever and whenever possible, 
it seems only consistent and proper that there should be 
sufficient sex patriotism in the modern woman to lead her 
to a professional consideration of her sisters in business. 
At least this ought to be true until women have entered 
the business world in something like equal numbers to the 
men. 

In this way women will find that the cause of women 
constitutes a special object for their solicitous considera¬ 
tion and watchful care; and they will be able to take spe¬ 
cial delight and secure not a little of real soul-satisfaction 
in contributing to the advancement of their sex, as a 
whole, in the world of business. 

And so, in this way, sex patriotism will contribute to 
emotional elimination, to self-expression, to psychic satis¬ 
faction; and thus it helps to keep down one’s pressure, 
both psychic and physical, and in the end proves to be a 
real safety valve for mind, soul and body. 


SAFETY VALVES FOR PEP 


99 


II. LOYALTY—LOVE OF YOUR FIRM- 
COMMERCIAL PATRIOTISM 

The average man or woman takes a lot of satisfac¬ 
tion in being loyal to something. Americans all like to 
join things. We all dearly love to be patriotic. Most of 
us are tickled to death to serve in a good cause, to toil for 
the advancement of a worth-while project. Loyalty un¬ 
failingly breeds enthusiasm, devotion enlarges the hori¬ 
zon, and consecration is good for the nerves. These senti¬ 
ments and emotions all serve to lighten our tasks and to 
ease our burdens. 

You can work twice as hard without breaking down 
when you like the folks you are working with. Congenial 
business associates and agreeable commercial companions 
turn work that you would otherwise find drudgery into 
pleasure and joy. 

If you don’t like your firm, or your business connec¬ 
tions, then either learn to like them or get away from 
them. Make a new connection. Don’t go along year 
after year working for a thing you don’t love and that 
you cannot be loyal to, with a whole heart, for loyalty 
and all that goes with it constitutes a great safety valve 
for pep. 

You cannot safely carry a high pep pressure when 
you are not enthusiastic about your business connections. 
It will wear you out, and break you down, sooner or later. 
You want to have such a business connection that as the 
years go by you can take an increased interest in your 
work; that you can safely cultivate more and more en¬ 
thusiasm for your job; that you can become more and 
more devoted to the thing you are doing. 

You are never going to develop the spirit of a cru¬ 
sader and the enthusiasm of an evangelist, trying to put 
over a proposition that you don’t heartily believe in, or 
advancing the business interests of a firm you are not 
loyal to. You are not going to be able to reduce your 
blood pressure, to relieve your nervous tension and main¬ 
tain your nervous equilibrium, doing something that you 


100 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


are not whole heartedly interested in and whole souledly 
devoted to. 

III. CONTENTMENT—LOVE OF WORK- 
VOCATIONAL PATRIOTISM 

Someone asked the late Theodore Roosevelt how he 
could work so hard and be so healthy and so happy, and 
he replied: “I like my job.” A good job is a prime 
necessity for health and happiness. Contentment is a 
great safety valve to regulate pep pressure. If you want 
to work hard and at the same time be healthy and happy, 
you must either learn to like your job or else get rid of 
it as soon as possible, and get a job you do like. 

This is not only good common sense, good physiology, 
and good psychology, but it must be good theology also, 
because I think it was the apostle Paul who, in describ¬ 
ing his varying life experiences, said: “I have learned in 
whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” Dis¬ 
satisfaction, indecision, and every other sort of nervous 
uncertainty about the position you hold or the work you 
are doing, are all disastrous to health, demoralizing to 
happiness, and destructive to business efficiency. 

It is not fair to your firm nor yourself to go on work¬ 
ing at something you really dislike. Of course, I want 
you to be careful about making changes, for perhaps 
some of you belong to that nervous, chronically dissatis¬ 
fied group, who find it hard to be happy anywhere, or 
satisfied with anything. You belong to that type of in¬ 
dividual who always thinks the other fellow has the best 
of every proposition. You are always tempted to feel 
that your competitor is a 4 ‘lucky dog,” while you con¬ 
template your struggles and feel that your luck is always 
rotten. As business women you better get the word luck 
out of your vocabulary. Better say good-bye to it once 
and for all. 

I think it was the great inventor, Edison, who once 
said to a fellow who remarked that one of his inventions 
must have been the result of a great inspiration (you 


SAFETY VALVES FOR PEP 


101 


know Edison is a little deaf, and the man had to repeat 
the word inspiration twice); but when he finally caught 
it, Edison replied, “No, not inspiration—perspiration, 
perspiration. ’’ While some of you are holding your 
heads in your hands waiting for an inspiration, some 
other woman will go out and in profuse perspiration 
turn the trick and leave you in the lurch. 

The love of work, then, devotion to one’s job, comes 
to be of real value as a safety valve for pep, as a means 
of self-expression, as a channel for blowing off steam, 
and as a direct agency which can be used to prevent ner¬ 
vous breakdowns and temperamental blow-ups. 

IV. RECREATION—LOVE OF PLAY- 
PRIMITIVE PATRIOTISM 

I don’t know of anything (aside from a good job) 
that serves as such a wonderful safety valve for mind— 
yes, and body—as a good fad. The older you get the 
more certainly you need to play, and play regularly. You 
know, we love to do those things—to play at those things 
which our early ancestors worked at. That is why I 
call this love of recreation primitive patriotism. Our 
ancestors fished for a living. Sometimes fish was their 
only source of food supply. That must be the reason why 
we like to fish for fun—as a recreation. 

We are benefited not only by our fads but by our avo¬ 
cations. I am not only helped by playing, but it does me 
good to write books and lecture. It is a little bit differ¬ 
ent from the ordinary run of my duties, as a medical 
man. 

If you want to work hard as a business woman and 
deliver the goods, and avoid breaking down in the midst 
of your game, if you want to be sure that your greatest 
safety valve is in working order, then get a hobby—fall 
in love with a fad. Children love to play, and they don’t 
often have nervous prostration. We don’t send business 
men off to sanitariums because they are “nutty” or 
brain-cracked, until they quit playing. We don’t have 


102 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


to see the doctor about nerve exhaustion and brain fag 
until we have pursued our business activities to the ne¬ 
glect of our play life. 

As business women you must learn how to relax; how 
to rest; how to change your activity. Study and cul¬ 
tivate wholesome methods of play. Now, I can’t pre¬ 
scribe a fad for you. A fad is like a sweetheart; you 
will have to find one and fall in love with it yourself. 
If I prescribe golf, or some other form of exercise for 
you, then it is a sort of medical procedure with you—a 
health practice—you are doing it because the doctor told 
you to. Now that is not the way you court when you are 
in love. God knows you don’t have to be told to do it, 
you’d do it if you were told not to. And that is the kind 
of a fad I want you to meet up with, and fall in love 
with, to pursue and embrace it, make it a part of your 
life—really enjoy it. 

You know work is a thing we have to do to make a 
living or to satisfy our ambition, or to satisfy the urge 
of a thyroid master that whips us into the game. But 
play is something we don’t have to do—:we just naturally 
like to do it. 

Difference Between Work and Play. Let me give 
you an illustration of the difference between work and 
play. Will you, in your imagination follow me for a 
moment? It is summer time. Over yonder in a vacant 
lot—the kids are playing baseball. A lad has just 
knocked a home run. Do you visualize the knee action 
as that boy runs around the diamond and slides in home 
—safe? Wasn’t that a picture of animated sprinting? 
Just now this boy’s father appears across the way with 
an empty market basket, whistles, and calls the boy away 
from the game to go to the grocery on an errand. Now 
watch the boy’s knee action. Never mind the look on 
his face, just watch the knee action. He can hardly walk 
—behaves as if he had partial paralysis. 

That is the difference between work and play. The 
boy has to go to the grocery store. He doesn’t want to. 
His muscles suddenly discover they are tired. He has 


SAFETY VALVES FOR PEP 


103 


spring fever. He didn’t have to play baseball—he 
wanted to. Many a boy would rather play baseball than 
eat—and that’s saying a lot. You see there is a great 
difference.in the effect on your health and strength when 
you are doing the thing you like to do as compared with 
having to do something that you don’t want to do— 
something that you don’t like. 

Again, in this connection I am reminded of an expe¬ 
rience I had a few years ago over near the hospital by 
Lincoln Park. I came out of the hospital one beautiful, 
balmy, spring morning with my wife, and just as we got 
outside she told me she had forgotten to see a new patient 
on the second floor and that she would have to go back. 
I said, ‘‘All right, Honey, I’ll wait for you down here 
in the fresh air.” There were a number of boys on the 
street corner spinning tops, loitering on their way to 
school. They all strolled on down the street, but one, 
who was waiting for his top to run down. I sauntered 
over to this lad and thought I’d have a visit with him 
while waiting. I had to introduce myself in some way, 
so I thoughtlessly said to this kid: “Son, can you tell me 
why you like to spin a top?” He gave me one straight 
look—he never took his eyes off me, as he edged over 
to where his top was, grabbed it, and went around the 
corner as if he were shot out of a gun. I followed. He 
looked back, and when he saw me coming, he yelled to 
his companions a little way ahead of him down the 
street: “Hey, fellers, dere’s a nut loose out o’ de hos¬ 
pital.” 

That lad knew I was crazy the moment I asked him 
that fool question. You have to have a reason for work¬ 
ing but not for playing, and that little fellow fig¬ 
ured that there’s something wrong with any man who 
would ask a boy why he liked to spin a top. And so 
there would be, if the question were asked soberly. I 
just asked it foolishly to get into conversation with 
the lad. 

My definition of play is this: first, something you 
would rather do than eat; and second, something that 


104 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


has nothing to do with your livelihood, ambition, or re¬ 
ligion. 

Find yourself a fad, go back to play, ride a hobby, 
have a grand and glorious time, don’t get old; remain 
kids, and you’ll do twice as much business next year as 
you did this year with only half the wear and tear on 
mind, soul, and body. Turn business into a game and 
get a lot of other games to play along with it, and you 
will find that the spirit of play will be almost like dis¬ 
covering the fountain of perpetual youth. Play rejuve¬ 
nates you when work wears you out; a fad rests you even 
when you work hard at it, even after you have been tired 
out at your work-a-day tasks. 

V. SOCIABILITY—LOVE OF FOLKS— 
SOCIAL PATRIOTISM 

It is not only a good thing to have a good job and a 
good fad, but you want to learn to love a good joke and 
develop your sense of humor; and in order to do that 
you have to be sociable; you must become a good mixer. 
You should learn to like folks—just folks. 

Get over some of your narrow-minded views, go out 
and mix with the world, and enjoy the people you meet. 
They are not so very different from you, and you will 
find something about every one of them to like, if you 
really get acquainted with them. 

If you know one really good typical Irishman, one 
Jew, and one Negro, you will have enough laughter thrust 
upon you to insure good digestion. People are interest¬ 
ing, they are lovable, and of course, too, a lot of them are 
funny. 

See to it that your associates, instead of getting on 
your nerves, tickle your funny bone. Many of you have 
a free ticket to a three-ring circus, but you don’t enjoy it. 
You are grouchy over some of the acts while somebody 
else is laughing and having the time of his life. Join 
in the chorus, come down off your high horse, and learn 
how to enjoy folks and be amused by them. 


SAFETY VALVES FOR PEP 


105 


Get interested in people for your own soul's sake, 
in order to provide a safety valve, in order to give your 
sense of humor a chance to grow and develop. Many of 
the people you are doing business with are very inter¬ 
esting, if you would only get acquainted with them. Get 
into the game—you’ll have a lot of fun. 

Cultivate a Sense of Humor. I think most business 
women have learned how to swap jokes. If you are 
doing it keep it up, and if you are not doing it, start 
today. 

Don’t get into a fix where you can’t see the humor of 
a situation, where you can’t see the joke on yourself. 
Don’t be like the fellow out West, the other day, on an 
aviation field, who rushed up to a chap who was trying 
to start an aeroplane, and said: “Can you fly me to 
Omaha?” The fellow said, “Sure, jump in.” And 
then this fellow took his place at the wheel and started 
this aeroplane straight up into the air—climbing up 
about five thousand feet—all the while looking around 
and grinning at his passenger. Now the passenger 
wanted to go to Omaha, not to Glory, so he yelled to his 
pilot: “What’s the matter with you? I don’t see the 
joke in this.” The pilot replied, “I do. By this time 
the superintendent of that insane asylum back there is 
looking all over the institution for me.” 

So there you are. Can you go straight up in the air 
five thousand feet with a lunatic and see the joke in it? 
Maybe not—but do your best—if you find yourself there. 

There is nothing in the world that will prevent nerv¬ 
ous breakdowns, grouchy dispositions, and business fail¬ 
ures—outside of the spirit of play—so much as the habit 
of telling stories. A sense of humor will keep you from 
taking yourself too seriously. Other people don’t take 
you seriously—why should you take yourself seriously? 

I am pleading with you to love folks because they are 
bound to develop your sense of humor. Cultivate folks 
—visit with them outside of business hours. Meet peo¬ 
ple—keep up your social life. Entertain and be enter¬ 
tained. 


106 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


Mingle with your fellow men from the highest to the 
lowest. Cultivate the banker—you may want to bor¬ 
row something sometime—and learn to know the 
“ chap” who sells you fruit on the corner. Find 
out about the newsboy you buy your papers of. 
In short, introduce yourself to the human race— 
the “so-called human race”—and you will find it a source 
of great delight and endless enjoyment. 

VI. WOMANHOOD—LOVE OF FAMILY- 
RACIAL PATRIOTISM 

I think every business woman, in addition to a good 
job, a good fad, and a good sense of humor, has an in¬ 
stinctive longing for a good home. That is an instinct of 
nature, and this longing and planning for a home, as well 
as its realization, constitute a very efficient safety valve 
for self-expression and the adjustment of internal pres¬ 
sure. 

Particularly, every woman should feel that she owes 
a debt to the race. Even more than men, I think it is 
devolvent upon women to develop and cultivate biologic 
patriotism. Of course I know, perhaps you are not all 
to be married, and even if you were some of you may be 
too old now to bear children, but you ought to have the 
right viewpoint of life. Especially would I urge the 
younger women, who might be trying to choose between 
a career in business and a home with children—be care¬ 
ful how you choose one and say good bye to the other. 
Some of you may be able to have a career and a home 
too. Not all of us men want to marry just a housekeeper. 
We are willing to marry a home-maker and provide 
sufficient help for the housekeeping so that our mate 
can have a chance to carve out her own career in the 
world. 

You know it must make every true woman stop and 
think what it is going to mean to future generations, 
when we consider that the lowest, most degraded twenty- 
five per cent of our present slum and foreign population 


SAFETY VALVES FOR PEP 


107 


is reproducing about seventy-five per cent of tbe next 
generation. I can well understand why business and 
professional women should not be expected to have large 
families, but I feel that the women who represent 
good stock, whether you are business women or teachers, 
have no biologic right to shirk responsibility in this mat¬ 
ter. Of course, I understand some women will have a 
home without a career, and others will have a career with¬ 
out a home, but I hope at least some professional women 
may have both—thus while carving out a career they 
may be loyal to their racial patriotism. 

At any rate, keep a normal viewpoint of life. Never 
give up the notion of getting married, never say good 
bye to a home, go on hoping, planning and watching for 
it. Even if you are getting up in years, begin tonight— 
go home and start a “ God-knows-when ” box, and if you 
never do get married, you will have better health and 
it will be a great safety valve to your soul, if you go on 
planning and expecting sometime to be married. 

VII. RELIGION—THE LOVE OF GOD- 
MORAL PATRIOTISM 

It may seem strange to you that I, a medical man, dis¬ 
cussing health and efficiency, should drop into a discus¬ 
sion of religion. Mind you, I am not asking you to be 
church members, though that might be a very excellent 
thing for many of you—many of you may already be 
church members. I am talking to you about religio?i as a 
safety valve for pep—as a health measure. I am giving 
you medical advice. I am not concerned with any re¬ 
ligious propaganda—or with any given creed. I want 
you to get your religion from the original source—from 
On High. 

Go out some dark night and look up at the stars and 
ask yourself who is running this astronomical plot. 
Broaden your spiritual horizon. Get it into your head 
that you can fraternize with the spiritual forces that 
emanate from, and are in contact with, the spiritual 


108 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


power that resides in The Great Source and Center of 
this universe. 

As you go out into the business world, to mingle with 
its men and women, to meet individuals who are actuated 
by all sorts of sordid motives and base scruples, you need 
the inspiration, encouragement, and balance that comes 
from the assurance of religious faith. 

You need to believe, with a whole heart, in a Supreme 
Being, and possess an unwavering confidence in a future 
existence. The older I get, the more I come to believe 
in the benefit any normal human being can derive from 
the enjoyment of some sort of religion. Of course, to me, 
as a medical man, it matters little what sort of religion 
a man has, just so it is a good one—just so it will serve 
the practical purpose of a safety valve for pep. Per¬ 
sonally, I am a believer in the Christian religion, but as 
far as getting physical benefit is concerned one can get it 
just as well out of any other system of religious belief— 
if he sincerely believes and honestly practices it. 

How Religion Helps. When all is said and done, 
our life down here is but one short, brief career. Our 
sojourn here on earth, no matter how successful we may 
be at the game we are playing, is but a few days of trial 
and struggle—of joy and sorrow. Our race is soon run, 
and our earthly goal—death—is soon reached. And I 
have found, not only in my personal experience, but 
in the case of my friends and patients who are in the 
business world, that it is a wonderful help to have 
something to fall back on now and then, something to 
think of when oppressed by business worry and har- 
rassed with commercial cares. 

Although our play and hobbies, our business interests 
and our devotion to home, all have their proper place, it 
seems after all that the average human being needs the 
inspiring influence, the elevating atmosphere, the spirit¬ 
ual tendencies, of a belief in a hereafter, a Great Beyond. 

Of course, I want your religion, your love of God, to 
be big enough to take in the love of everything that is 
beautiful and uplifting. Your religion should be some- 


SAFETY VALVES FOR PEP 


109 


thing more than a theologic creed or a superstitious 
dogma. Your religion should include the inspiration of 
music and the beauty of art—it should embrace all 
things ethical, beautiful, and uplifting. In a word, I 
have come to the conclusion that man is 'naturally re¬ 
ligious and that, all things equal, he has better health 
and is happier if he enjoys a religion of some sort. 

I honestly believe, as a scientific man, that my fellow 
mortals need something like religion to enlarge their 
minds, to ennoble their ambitions, to inspire their achieve¬ 
ment, and to help them in successfully controlling their 
animal natures—their baser passions. 

Sex and Religion. I think it is a significant thing 
that the sex instinct and religious impulses are aroused 
in young people about the same time—at puberty. I 
think it is more than passingly significant and suggestive 
that religion was intended to help us in the control of 
sex, when we stop to think that it is just around the age 
of twelve to fifteen that the sex emotions begin to appear 
in a youth’s life, and it is just about this same age that 
those tender and definite religious impulses are also felt. 

I think we all—at least most of us—as we come to 
grow older, begin to do some serious thinking about what 
is going to happen to us when w r e are through down here. 
After we have won our fight, after we have succeeded in 
the game we are playing on this planet, what are we 
going to do next? Most of us, I take it for granted, be¬ 
lieve in some sort of survival after death. Most of us I 
think are ambitious to develop a character, as we live our 
life down here, that will be worthy of salvaging, will be 
worth transporting to another, and let us hope, a better 
world. 

Now I am not talking about Sir Oliver Lodge, or Sir 
A. Conan Doyle. I am not a spiritualist, but I do be¬ 
lieve in the reality of spiritual things and in the exist¬ 
ence of a spiritual world. I believe in God, and I don’t 
think any scientific man or any business man or woman 
should be ashamed of such a belief. The time is past 
when we should regard religion as the amusement of 


110 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


youth or a vocation for old maids. Religion is a good 
thing for educated, upstanding, red-blooded, forward- 
looking men and women. 

Religion as a Safety Valve. I believe that the very 
Power that puts the longing to live again into the heart 
of man, will in some way supply the opportunity for 
those who are worthy. I don’t believe the Creator puts 
hunger for food or thirst for water in our souls and then 
leaves us to w r orry along without them. We find that 
for most forms of hunger and thirst there is something 
real to satisfy the longing, and I therefore believe that 
in the case of our desire to live again the Wise Intelli¬ 
gence or Divine Power that planted that thing in the 
human breast has provided some way for its achievement 
—that the hunger for eternal life means that there is a 
possibility of attaining it. 

My reason for discussing all this with you is that I 
believe religion is a great moral safety valve, a great 
spiritual governor to preside over the activities and to 
guide the destinies of American business men and women. 
I believe that when you are ground down by the heart¬ 
lessness and crassness of the business world, when you 
are disgusted with politics and all its mess of graft, when 
society seems morally rotten and spiritually decadent, 
when you are about ready to lose confidence in the human 
race—then I say, when the day is gray and life itself 
seems hardly worth living—it is at such a time that 
religion comes in to illuminate the viewpoint, expand the 
horizon, and beckon you to face forward and look up¬ 
ward, to get a view not only of things as they are but of 
things as they ought to be—and so spiritual things be¬ 
come not only an inspiration for the future, but they 
prove stepping stones for deliverance from the sordid 
surroundings of today. 

VIII. FALSE SAFETY VALVES 

Now, in a way I am through. I have finished discus¬ 
sing with you the seven safety valves for pep, but perhaps 


SAFETY VALVES FOR PEP 


111 


it is not best for me to stop without calling your attention 
to some false safety valves, some dangerous methods of 
trying to secure rest, relaxation, and relief from nervous 
tension. 

I know you will receive this part of my message in 
the spirit in which I offer it. I hope you may get some 
suggestions that may save you some sorrow and heart 
ache. In other words, I want to save you from the peril¬ 
ous chase of the rainbows of enjoyment, and help you 
stick to the seven tried safety valves I have suggested. 
Among the false and deceptive methods of trying to se¬ 
cure relaxation and recreation, I may mention: 

1. Late Hours and Excitement. I have never 
found that a business woman could get much real satis¬ 
faction, happiness, or health out of staying up late every 
night in the week and trying to turn life into one round 
of riotous pleasure. I don’t think either health, happi¬ 
ness, or business efficiency, or the inspirations therefor, are 
to be found in the cabaret. Let us not become vicious in 
our play, careless in our recreation or heedless of the 
laws of health and the rules of society when we go out 
to have a good time. 

The business woman—the real woman, is not going 
to try to further her career on the one hand, nor to se¬ 
cure pleasure and joy on the other, by pursuing the paths 
of vamping, vice, and vanity. Let common sense guide 
you and womanly instinct control you in these matters. 

2. Narcotics and Stimulants. I don’t believe it is 
necessary for a woman, in her efforts to achieve business 
success, to copy the methods of men in their efforts to 
have a good time, to be sociable, or to be good fellows. I 
don’t take any stock in this notion that a woman, in 
order to be a good fellow, must drink or smoke cigar¬ 
ettes. It is neither sense nor good taste, and still fur¬ 
ther, it is not in the interest of good health. 

I imagine there is little need for me to raise my voice 
here in protest against the use of alcohol and tobacco. Fur¬ 
ther, I am not going to argue the question with you 
about equal rights for women. I haven’t a word to say. 


112 


PERSONALITY AND HEALTH 


I don’t question that you have an equal right with men 
to become drunkards or cigarette fiends. I think that 
is just as much your right as is the right to vote, but 
it doesn’t make it morally or ethically right, even if it 
is politically right. 

Furthermore, I think there is a social obligation rest¬ 
ing upon women to try and maintain the standards for 
better things—to try and advance the cause of higher 
endeavor. 

I am also anxious that you will not become victims 
of any other drug, even tea and coffee, and in this con¬ 
nection I want to mention headache powders, pain kill¬ 
ers, and what not. Don’t form the habit of taking any 
drug regularly, not even cathartics. Learn how to get 
along on good terms with old Mother Nature, and if there 
is anything wrong with you that is sufficiently serious to 
demand drugs, put your case in the hands of a good 
doctor. Don’t prescribe for yourself. 

3. Gambling. Don’t seek to divert your mind or 
secure recreation at the wheel of fortune. Many indi¬ 
viduals seek to relieve their pent-up feelings and indulge 
their craving for excitement at the gaming table, but it 
usually brings more sorrow than pleasure, more regret 
than joy. I know there seems to be something inborn 
in human nature that leads them to try to get some¬ 
thing for nothing. We are all looking for short cuts to 
fame, health and power. 

Wholesome amusement, harmless recreation, and inno¬ 
cent diversion we all recount as among the necessaries of 
life, and we all feel that we are entitled to a certain 
amount of play; but when it comes to the wheel of for¬ 
tune for purposes of diversion, I fear you are making a 
mistake. I fear you are going too far. Better turn 
your attention to those real and uplifting channels of 
play and adventure, and let your emotions find expres¬ 
sion in those other wholesome, safe, and sane avenues 
for fun and relaxation. 

And now I have finished my story—the story of the 
personality engine, the business energy, the commerce 


SAFETY VALVES FOR PEP 


113 


indicators, and last the safety valves for pep. I have 
presumed, before I stopped, to warn you of the disastrous 
counterfeit safety valves, those things that promise to re¬ 
lieve tension and pressure, and which bring in their wake 
sorrow and disease. I have told you this story as it looks 
to a medical man, and I trust that I have said some things 
which will add to your health, happiness and efficiency. 
















APPENDIX 


EXERCISES 

Systematic exercise taken for ten minutes just after 
rising in the morning and in the evening just before 
retiring is conducive to sound sleep, good digestion and 
steady nerves. It is a real efficiency promoter. 

The exercises described on the next few pages have 
been used by thousands of women with most satisfactory 
results. They are offered here as one of the simple and 
at the same time wonderfully effective health and effi¬ 
ciency measures that every woman can take in a few 
moments of time, morning and evening, in the privacy 
of her own room. They do not require a gymnasium or 
elaborate apparatus—merely a dresser, the foot of a bed, 
or a table, a low stool, and floor space large enough to 
stretch out on. With a few weeks systematic carrying 
out of the program outlined here you will be surprised 
and delighted with your increase in physical fitness, 
mental alertness, and general well being. 

All the preparation required is the removal of the 
clothing down to the under garments and stockings, and 
the opening of the windows to admit plenty of fresh air. 

In taking these exercises the best plan will be to begin 
with one for the arms, as No. 1 or 2; one for the limbs, as 
No. 6 or 9; one for the trunk, as No. 4, 5, or 11. The 
Deep Breathing, No. 8, should always precede your 
exercise. 

Continue these for two weeks. At the expiration of 
this period, select three other exercises, use them for two 
weeks, and then make another selection, carrying out 
this program until all of the exercises have been used. 
You will then be in a position to select those that seem 
best suited to your particular needs. If you are on your 
feet a great deal pay less attention to exercises for the 
lower limbs than to those for the trunk and arms, while 
if you are sitting most of the time select exercises for 
the limbs, trunk and arms. 

115 


116 


APPENDIX 



1. ARM AND SHOULDER RESISTANCE 

Grasrp the hands tightly and push toward the right shoulder, 
stretching the arm and left shoulder vigorously. Reverse. Repeat 
these movements from 5 to 10 times. 









APPENDIX 


117 



2. ARM AND SHOULDER CIRCUMDUCTION 

Sitting position. Place the tips of the fingers on the shoul¬ 
ders, raise the elbows forward, upward, backward, and outward, 
making a complete circle with the arms. Inhale with the forward 
movement, and exhale with the backward movement. Much resis¬ 
tance should be made with this exercise, which should be taken 
very slowly. Repeat from 5 to 10 times. 















118 


APPENDIX 



3. LATERAL STRETCHING 

Stretch the left hand entirely over the head, placing the fingers 
over the right ear, the right hand stretching downward. Bend 
the body to the right as far as possible, keeping the feet on the 
floor. Change the position, placing the right hand over the head, 
the fingers over the left ear, the left arm stretching downward. 
Bend the body to the left as far as possible. Repeat from 3 tc 5 
times. 













APPENDIX 


119 


i 



4. TRUNK BACKWARD BENDING 

With the hands at the back of the neck, the chin pulled down¬ 
ward toward the chest, the feet slightly separated, the hips against 
the foot of the bed or edge of the table, bend the trunk backward 
and forward to erect position. Repeat from 5 to 10 times. 









12Q 


APPENDIX 



5. LATERAL TRUNK EXERCISE 

Stand with the left hip to the foot of the bed or against a 
table. Place the left hand on the hip, the thumb pointing back¬ 
ward, the right hand at the back of the neck, the eyes straight 
ahead. Bend as far as you can to the left. Repeat from 5 to 10 
times. Turn, place the right hip to the foot of the bed or edge 
of the table. Place the right hand on the hip, the left hand at 
the back of the neck, raise the chest well, look straight ahead. 
Bend to the right as far as possible. Repeat from 5 to 10 times. 














APPENDIX 


121 



© © 
rP P 

4J 


© © 
~ rP 




1 

CD 

> 

o 


Eh 

H 

5 

H 

l> 

O 

a 

o 

£ 
I—I 

M 

o 

Eh 

H 

W 

Eh 

m 

6 

w 

t -3 

& 

£ 

M 

Eh 

W 

Eh 

CD 


.S-S 

GO 

© 

• (-4 

-M ** 

© 

P 

•»H 

gcc 

CM 

M 

pP 

’© 

-P 

-P 

P 

• 

p 

© 



CM 

s> +5 

tJD © 


CS bJD 

l • rH 

tC P 
P ^ 


© . 
P © 


U»» 

•s * o a 
s © £ 

®3 © 

^ P 


M 

© p 

P 03 

-4-3 

° ts 

t«JD " t-> OJ 

5 p £ 

• fH ■ a 


^ rt *h 

© P 
© ^ P P 
P 


© 

P 


_ h3 
-P © 

q .2 

© qq 

H 


I s w 

«3 ^ w 

~ S H3 PI 

o -p 2 © 
O S 3 88 JH 

q ° «i d 

© ^ § 

p « ° 


go 

© 

© 

P 

P 

© 


„ $ -8 
Sot 
O £ <fl ^ 

•g '2 ©~ 4J 
j§ «« £ g 

, © r© • 

m © m oo 

P l"P Oj-C fl 

p ^ 2 .9 
0 * 03 -g 0 

-P ® £ tH 

>*45 tS o 

P d ^ -*-» 

r ~: no 

.sss-r ,Q 

-1 >H 

W K © pj 

o mP » 
o a> -2 p 
S-t P © W 






122 


APPENDIX 









APPENDIX 


123 



00 s fl -g 
© n -2 » 
®.S ji ® 
fl .fl hJO g« 

© ft bo 

.fl ^ fl 

® *B | 5 

-M -t-s ® M 

fl ® £ 

> 2 _Q © 

© PI ft ,fl 
*© © © 


u 


m 

& 


«H 

<D 


© 

13 


-fl ^ rH 

.fl bfi^ 3 
^ ft A fl 

§ ri p< 

° ° -g p 

o 


so -m 
13 fl 
fl 
fl 

^ fl rP fl 


fl 


S CO 

22 


•■fl © 03 


a 


© 1-1 "*"* 

^ ft^ 

-+-> © Ta-i 

© biD jij 

s-® §.l 

H Js g 

PL| © -M O 

<8 ® 

d-^s * 

o #rN m a> 

2 o ~ 

9 fl n3 bfl 

2 S-9 

bfift £ 

0 -M 

%s 


p 
P Ph 
o 


© © 
rfl © 


fl CQ 
© © 


« a-g 

'Jj +j .Q ,fl 
&H p, 05 ~ 

S ££ 

P4 52 r=i 







5 to 10 times, 






124 


APPENDIX 



hands, making an effort to» lift the head, chest and knees from the floor, 
Repeat 2 to 4 times. 




APPENDIX 


125 



with the feet and head, stretching 





126 


APPENDIX 




o 

o 

-t-i 

co 

£ 

o 

■-H 

c$ 

PI 

o 


<D O Q 

- -m -g -t-> 
<D 

4 ^^ w <P 

m 'H be ® 

,s " .a g 

<D bJO j= 

^3 "iH >— 

jj ^ et 


CQ 


pi © 

O -g 


O) CO 

co *rj 

O £ 

O C_| 


. s ^ 

T3 2 bo 

rrt M .rH 

5 .* f - 
-g +-> o 
cs «w ^4 

CD -t-» 

iif 

g ~ S 

02 © O 























































APPENDIX 


127 



12. TRUNK CIRCUMDUCTION 

This is a good exercise for the reduction of adipose tissue 
about the waist and is taken while sitting on a low stool, the hands 
on the hips, the feet astride. The trunk is bent forward, the eyes 
are fixed on a point ahead. The upper body is now rotated from 
the waist, making a complete circle, swelling the chest outward as 
the body semi-reclines backward. Repeat from 5 to 10 times, very 
slowly and with resistance. 


















128 


APPENDIX 



13. LEG THRUSTING 

While lying on the back, the knee grasped as in the illustra¬ 
tion, the foot is thrust upward with strong extension of the knee 
and lower leg, reaching up as high as possible. The toe is ex¬ 
tended and the foot rotated outward, while in this position. Repeat 
3 to 5 times with each leg. 


























































































































































































































































































































































































